Max Newman

Aylesbury, UK @maxripcor

The 19th century English writer and art critic John Ruskin has a quote attributed to him that I particularly like. “It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money – that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.” With this in mind, I’d decided that buying the best I could afford, from the right place, was the approach for me when buying a 997 to run as my only car. I hoped it would prove to be so, as I drove away from Paragon on 20 April 2012 to surprise my Dad in North Norfolk. He was running a slightly shonky but very cool 996.1 C2, and nearly fell through the window of his house with excitement when I pulled up outside.

I drove 16,698 miles in the car that year after which it required just an oil change and alternator loom alongside the MOT. Adding a further 11,209 miles over the following 12 months meant I needed to replace some consumables, as well as the dreaded rotting and battered AC condensers. Paragon replaced the tyres, pads and discs all round, as well as the condensers, some corroded exhaust bolts and some auxiliary drive belts and pulleys. A bill of £3,653.13 seemed reasonable given what was required, and that it came after two years and 27,907 miles of varied motoring.

At this point I should mention that I struggled to keep track of my tyre mileage because each November I was swapping from summer to winter tyres. I needed the winters for an annual pilgrimage through the Alps to the Alba White Truffle Fair in Italy, which falls in November. They proved useful at home too in snowy winters. When temperatures crept to mid-teens they were not so confidence inspiring, and I was glad to see the back of them come spring.

In my third year of ownership I racked up another 12,338 miles, taking the total mileage to 89,703. This meant that my annual visit to Paragon would be for a 40K-mile major service, as well as any consumables. In addition to the service items I needed a geo alignment, differential seal, coil pack; all of which came to £2,283.68. Later that year I needed new tyres, brake wear sensors, and brake fluid after a track evening at Bedford. I had this done locally at RPM Technik, who also replaced the battery as I found that leaving the car for a few days at a time would drain the battery.

The way I used the car began to change after that. More on this another time.