Phil Farrell
Cheshire, UK @mllx8pjf
Model 991.1 C2 GTS Year 2015 Acquired JUNE 2020
This last month I made another impromptu appearance on the fast-growing Road to Redline podcast, which was fun. The subject was DIY disasters and it made for some very interesting stories indeed. Well worth a listen.
Talking of car maintenance, I’ve really enjoyed watching online the birth of a new Porsche-related business. Readers will be familiar with Scott Gardner from the
‘ask the expert’ column in this very mag. Scott has been at our local OPC for a number of years but has taken the plunge and gone out on his own with business partner James Belbin to form Bahnsport (@bahnsportltd). Few people are lucky enough to enjoy what they do for a day job, but to be able to spend your working day fixing people’s Porsche pride and joy must be another level. A picture circulated on a local Whatsapp group, and it really struck me that here are two guys totally happy with what they do. I wish them both all the best with the new enterprise.
Previously I wrote about being surprised by how much I liked the 991 Speedster once I’d actually been up close and seen it rolling. I think I’m going to need to spend more time looking at special Porsche models before making my mind up, because it happened again this morning. Out for breakfast with the usual crowd (because we can do that again now) our editor-in-chief had the Targa Heritage Edition sat in the car park. This was a car I’d prematurely boxed-off in my own mind as a bit of a marketing exercise. Again, I was wrong. Now I’m not saying for a second that I believe the current overs price for the few that are on the market represents good value, but in the candy
red colour with the Atacama beige interior it looked absolutely stunning. The little touches in the interior like the corduroy seat inserts (although already showing signs of wear on the press car) and the gold lettering really set the car off.
Next month represents my one-year anniversary with the GTS. Those that know me will know that I chop and change cars quite regularly and so to have a car more than a year is a bit of a milestone. I was saying to the guys this morning that right now I just can’t think of anything for sensible money that I’d change the car for. It’s a nice place to be and is actually testament to how good the car is.
The only slight downside to ‘long-term’ ownership of the GTS is that with one year of ownership comes the dreaded MOT (for readers not in the UK, that’s the test our cars must pass each year to prove their safety to be on the public highway). I have no doubt it will pass once I’ve fitted the wiper blades I picked up at the last service and have not gotten around to fitting yet. I suspect it’s because I don’t want to add the content to the next DIY blunders podcast. It’s a Porsche so it’s going to be complex and over-engineered, right? But if I want the car to pass I’d best get learning fast. Now where did I put that spanner?