Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Don't be sad about it

Speaking of prices being in an unfathomable stratosphere, Porsche announced today the company is moving further upmarket. Because $130K for a poverty-spec Carrera, and effectively $300K for a GT3, isn’t enough of a barrier to entry. Aspirational? Never mind that. It’s a club you cannot join.

Back in 2019, I was able to buy a then four-year old used 911 GT3. It took a bit of stretching the finances, but it was doable. Fast-forward to 2026, and I cannot do the same with a now four-year old used 911 GT3. And my salary has increased since 2019! Because the new market for Porsches has inflated, the used market has followed right along with it. Middle-class enthusiasts like me are being priced completely out.

At least I have the good fortune to say I’ve owned a 911. Even though that chapter is forever closed, never to be repeated. Do I regret selling my GT3? I guess I do. I’m certainly sad about it from time to time looking back, but it was a necessary move. Other big changes in life necessitated parting ways with the dream car. I was not going to go into constant money worry and chronic debt just for this car hobby. Nope.

I like to look at regret like the Avengers going back in time to “borrow” the infinity stones. The me that kept the GT3 is on another timeline. A branch off this main timeline that I am currently on. The lament ends right when I recognize that the person who would have kept the 911 isn’t me. The person who should have studied abroad, isn’t me. The person who should have started weightlifting in his 20s, isn’t me.

The current me, the main timeline, is made up of the accumulation of regrets and mistakes. There’s no point in wishing for a different choice or outcome, because that Healy would be a completely different person. A Healy that picked up the piano at a young age and was studious with it is living life in another multiverse. Want as I may for this Healy to have had stuck with piano learning when I was young and my fingers lithe, it is just not me.

I have many regrets, but the Healy that didn’t make those mistakes is on a totally different path. There’s no need to be sad about it.

Too easy

Another day, another special edition sports car costing a thick chunk of a million dollars. A collective yawn by the motoring peanut gallery. Because when 60 grand can buy you a used electric vehicle - like a Tesla Model S - that can go toe-to-toe with any car for speed on public roads, manufacturers of the expensive stuff really need to look elsewhere for the differentiation.

When speed is democratized and relatively cheaply available, it no longer matters that the new Lamborghini model can go 0-60 miles-an-hour in under 2.5 seconds. Who cares? Going fast is mere table stakes at this point. What else are you offering that pleasures the other senses? How does a car make the driver feel?

Give Porsche credit: the reason 911 GT3s are the wealthy car enthusiasts’ version of Pokemon cards is because they are offering more than just pure speed. A naturally-aspirated flat-six engine that sings a heavenly tune. The best feeling manual transmission on planet earth. Delightfully calibrated and feelsome steering. These are sensations that tingles and fizzes without the need to go outrageous velocities.

Other makers of mass-produced fast cars need to recognize that chasing after ever diminishing speed returns has reached a dead end. Fast EVs have put a death note to that arms race. Now it’s probably true that there’s enough wealth out there that Mercedes-AMG’s half million 30-unit limited edition thing has no problem selling out. But even Affalterbach recognizes that ultimate quickness is no longer the meal ticket. The CLE 646 is real-wheel drive only, and carries not a single cell of hybrid battery onboard.

Perhaps there’s hope! I would certainly like to see more manufactures bring out cars that tug at the enthusiast heart strings, at the sacrifice of fast lap times. Something like the GMA T.50, just, you know, magnitudes cheaper. The Porsche 911 cannot be and remain the only answer, because it’s truly getting boring. When it’s the automatic solution for every car guy tech bro that struck it rich, it’s too easy to the point of uninteresting.

Speed is easy. The 911 is easy. Francis Bourgeois’s - host of The Grand Tour - $70,000 Honda Fit? Now that’s an infinitely interesting way to spend your car enthusiast money. Kudos.

Run away into the sunset

This Reddit user is slightly ranting about the state of the car enthusiast market. How everything that’s new and exciting all cost into the many hundreds of thousands, or millions. The user ends with this nugget: “Do I just buy a Miata and run away into the sunset?”

Insert Leo pointing meme.

That’s me! I literally just bought a brand new Miata, and hopefully shall ride it into the eventual sunset. I too am disappointed at the monetary inflation of the enthusiast market. The special Porsche that was once a stretchable goal for the working man (I literally did it) has been punted beyond any reasonable reach. The manual transmission is a dying mechanical art from, but no worries, McLaren is bringing it back into their lineup… in a limited special priced equivalent to a house.

I can see how that can be discouraging. Unlike the kid with the Countach poster on the wall, working-class car enthusiasts have already come to the realization that we can’t afford a Lamborghini. At least the kid can still dream and strive for a reality that isn’t yet set in stone. 38 year old me? The chances of me ever being able to plop down $250,000 for a singular car is absolutely zero.

Instead of lamenting it, we in the peasant class should rejoice that there are still some options for our income bracket. Just a few options, yes, but kudos to the manufactures for still catering to our niche. My Mazda MX-5 Miata and the Toyota GR86 remain affordable samples of what car enthusiast claim to want: naturally-aspirated engine, real-wheel drive, and a manual gearbox. All for the relatively low price of mid 30,000s.

For sure those two cars don’t carry the social media scene points of a BMW M car or a 911 GT3. You shouldn’t care about that, right? For sheer joy of driving, the two sports cars from Japan is excellent at any price. The fact that they are priced affordably is a damn win for the common enthusiast. Of the two, I picked the Miata because I had one that I miss dearly.

Gamble to rumble

One of my frequent YouTube channels is Tyrrell's Classic Workshop. The latest video shows the proprietor going over to Paris, France for a car auction. In that very car auction is a Ferrari 250 LM that sold for 28 million euros. An unfathomably large sum - to spend on a single car - for a broke person with meager means like myself.

A tremendous amount of money for a thing that will largely sit in an air-conditioned garage for many years. Until the next supremely rich car guy pays even more for it. Heck, the buyer might not even have to pay taxes if the car is stored in a free port. Vintage Ferrari race cars: the only time a car is an “investment”. Your paint-to-sample Porsche 911, sadly, is not. That money is better thrown into an S&P 500 fund.

The pain from being a broke car guy is that I don’t have the means to sample the variety of cars out there. I can only do so in the virtual world of Gran Turismo (the only way I can “own” and “drive” a Ferrari). A large garage full of automobiles is not in the cards for me, in this life time. I’d have to first afford a garage.

Then there are cars that’s wholly out of my income range. As a former owner of a 2015 Porsche 911 GT3, I currently cannot afford a 2025 Porsche 911 GT3. The starting MSRP has ballooned from $125,000 to $200,000. My incomes has not kept up with that inflation. And that’s before ticking a single option box, and paying extortion money to the selling dealership.

I can see why people gamble their whole money into specific stock options and/or crypto. There are so many nice things out there (it’s not only cars) that if we can just get a huge sum of money very quickly, we’d be able to buy and enjoy them all. They don’t want to wait the many decades in working hard and accumulating wealth slowly. Because a 911 GT3 won’t be brand new on sale for that much longer.

In lieu of getting extremely lucky in a gamble - not that I would in the first place, I hugely temper my expectations.

No Porsche for broke boys

Porsche announced today mid-cycle updates to the 992-generation 911 (992.1). My first reaction was: Jesus Christ, a base poverty-spec Carerra starts at $120,000 now?! That is not a lot of car for a crap ton of money. And that price is before you check any of the hundred of boxes on the options list. You want your 992.2 911 in traditional Guards Red color? That’s will cost $1,800 extra, whereas it was an no cost option in the 992.1. Kind of blasphemous.

Porsche seems to be evolving into a Ferrari-like way of doing business: charging extravagantly for its cars - because it can. The demand for its sports cars remains insatiable, so why not raise pricing across its lineup? Heck, the special edition 911s - the ones enthusiasts ejaculate over - are all at Ferrari level pricing anyways, after the dealership tacks on $150,000 of additional markup.

Can’t hate the player, nor can I hate the game. Dealerships charge markups because someone out there is willing to pay. Us broke boys can’t be mad that we don’t got (or unwilling to spend) the money.

New Porsche sports cars are for the wealthy car enthusiasts now. No car guy making middle-class income should be throwing down $120,000 (at least) for a new 911 (or any six-figure car). That’s not a value judgement, it’s just math. I know auto financing can stretch into seven or eight years these days, but one look at an amortization table should scare anyone off. A $120,000 car, putting a 10% downpayment, for an 84 months loan at 5.99% will equate to over $27,000 of interest alone.

You can buy a brand-new Toyota Corolla with that money.

10K in the M2

Recently I noticed my BMW M2 Competition’s odometer ticked over 10,000 miles. It’s taken about two years of ownership to get there, which is to say: a rather long period. A non-insignificant chunk of those miles isn’t even of my doing. The three longest drive taken in my M2 was by other drivers who borrowed the car. The longest I’ve done was two trips to West Sacramento IKEA (from San Francisco) because it was the lone store in the region in stock with the pieces of furniture I wanted.

10,000 miles in two years is easily the least amount of mileage of any car I’ve owned. Even my previous Porsche 911 GT3 - a complete leisure vehicle - would have done the equivalent of 12,000 miles. Living within walking distance of everything - work, play, errands - utterly kills any need of driving. The absolutely bonkers gas prices of 2022 - thanks to the war in Ukraine, I guess? - have limited even the joyful cruises in the local mountains and coastal roads.

Despite the relatively limited seat time, I remain utterly in love with the M2 Competition. It’s such a spritely little coupe with some big power to back it up. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the BMW is more fun to drive than the GT3, albeit in my super amateurish hands. The Porsche is the more eventful car, however: each drive is an absolute occasion. I will always miss the GT3.

The M2 does the everyday life stuff better, too. The trunk is comparatively enormous, and any items bigger than it can be stowed by flipping down the rear seats. The aforementioned IKEA run was easily accomplished. Driving friends to the airport? No problems at all. Anything larger than a carry-on suitcase wouldn’t fit in the 911’s trunk. The BMW is an entirely friendlier car, both to me and my friends. There’s no place I wouldn’t take the M2 to and park it, which is not something I dared to do with the GT3.

All that is to say it was the correct decision to sell the Porsche for the M2 - even if I could afford to keep the Porsche. The M2 fits my lifestyle far better. The fact that it’s more fun to drive as well? I’m incredibly pleased with this BMW. Cheers to more many miles to come.

992 GT3

We have a new 911 GT3! The 992 generation of the do-everything track-toy carries over the same 4.0-liter naturally aspirated flat-six from the previous car, along with the beloved six-speed manual. You can of course still option for the automatic PDK gearbox. Straight line performance of the new GT3 isn’t any quicker, though it really doesn’t need to be when the 991 GT3 already reaches 60 miles an hour in the mid three seconds.

GT3 is a car for lap times and track performance. The advancements in the 992 is all down to aerodynamics and kinematics. An increase in downforce is visually evident in the swan-neck rear spoiler and the fancy rear diffuser. Double-wishbone front suspension makes an appearance in a 911 for the very first time, promising better geometry as the suspension loads up in the corners. Mustn’t forget the tires: Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires are a step above the non-R equivalents of the prior generation.

You may lose to a Tesla car at the stoplight sprints, but you’ll be faster than the 918 Spyder hypercar around a racing circuit. That’s what the vaunted GT3 badge is all about: absolute speed at the bendy bits.

The new car looks attractive, too. Especially the front-end, which utterly apes the look of the racing Cup cars. The signature rear light-bar of the 992 generation 911 is still ugly. No amount of aero bits in the GT3 can mask that ugliness.

I would lying if I said the announcement of the 992 GT3 didn’t make me pang for my departed 991.1 GT3. While the M2 Competition is quite the consolation prize, a 911 is still a 911. The BMW inline-six is venerable in its own right, but it cannot match the Porsche flat-six, one that revs to 9,000 RPM, for pure character.

I vow to get back into a GT3 in due time. In fact, I’m rather happy to see another generation of the lineage. Porsche sold relatively many 991 GT3s, so combined with the 992 production run, there’s going to be plenty on the used market for me to choose from. It’s not going to become some appreciated unobtanium like early air-cooled 911s.

Soon.