James Mcgrath
It’s been quite a month for me as far as my Porsche world goes. After three years of a tremendous ownership experience, I decided that it was time to move from my 991.
Why? Honestly, if you’d asked me a couple of months ago if I would sell my 991, I would have told you a firm “no”. I spent a lot of time tailoring that car to my own vision of how a 991 should look and perform. The Soul Performance headers and valved exhaust systems, the addition of factory PSE functionality, carbon fibre trim, leather interior trim with red stitching
to tie into the red seat belts I installed, the refurbishing steering wheel, the Sports Design front bumper, the 991.2 rear tail lights, the Moshammer duck tail spoiler… and many more. It wasn’t just my Porsche 911, it was my Porsche 911.
However, I felt I’d reached the end of my journey with that car. I had no more modifications I wanted to make, I had taken it on several 1,000-plus mile road trips over the course of the year. Short of tracking the car, which would take a heavy toll on the car, it was time to start a new adventure with a new car.
The question now is what’s next? Before I talk about my longer-term plans for my Porsche ownership story, I have an unfinished chapter whose ending still needs to be written: my 996 project car.
Some of you may remember I bought a 2002 996 C2 in 2019 and made a series of Project 996 videos about its restoration on my Youtube channel. My friends, Patrick and Steve, and I spent the best part of six months transforming this tired beauty into a fresh new vision of the 996. We replaced the broken transmission, replaced the brakes, powder-coated the brake calipers, replaced the fluids and filters, and installed new Fuchs-style rims with brand new tires.
Arguably the biggest modification was the full-custom paint job, taking what was a relative neutral silver 996 covered in dings and hail damage, and transforming it into an aqua-blue stunner. Every panel, seam, jamb, engine compartment and sill… you’d never know it was ever any other colour. We named the colour Sharkskin Blue (and before Porsche announced its Shark blue with the release of the 992 GT3) in honour of Patrick’s business – Sharkskin Design and his unrelenting passion for the colour blue). Unfortunately, the transmission broke (again!) and we discovered an alignment issue with the engine. In short, the pandemic hit and the project got shelved on the far side of my garage while my attention returned to my 991.
Before I can think about my “new” 911, I feel obligated to complete the 996 project car: getting it back on the road with a new lease of life, and on to a new owner who’ll enjoy it for the next 100,000 miles. So this is the game plan for the next couple of months. I have a 996 transmission en route from California, I have my eyes on a newly rebuilt 996 engine from a well-known 911 shop in the US and a few other surprises in store for the new owner. Roll on the 996!