Model 997.2 CARRERA S Year 2009 Acquired FEBRUARY 2021

Life is good right now. The 997 has mostly been used to get to the beach. It’s not been washed in months, the interior is covered in sand where Alfred the dog sits, and the carbon buckets are holding up well to me jumping in with wet board shorts. I’m loving using a 911 as a daily. Which is fortunate because the Mercedes has been in the shop for weeks waiting for a solution to parts that are no longer in production.

Think about that for a minute. Mercedes-benz is a company that claims to have invented the car (I still find this hard to believe as my understanding is that the British invented everything). It has a winning Formula 1 team with one of the best drivers to have ever raced, it makes some of the world’s most desirable cars, and its back catalogue is full of special vehicles. Yet a classic car from one of the longest production runs ever doesn’t have available OEM parts.

In the past I’ve muttered obscenities as I’ve paid the invoice for an air-cooled 911, questioning if the decimal point is in the correct place. But faced with not being able to get parts at all, I finally understood their value. Manufacturers aren’t selling classic parts by the truck load, hence why Mercedes likely decided to stop production. It’s highlighted to me just how amazing Porsche is. Its support for its cars’ owners, no matter what year the car was built, is truly impressive.

Anyway, the only task I had in mind this month for the Benz was to transport an exhibition display for a biotech client over to the Miami Beach Conference Center. I didn’t think it would fit in the 997. I assumed I’d be getting an Uber. However, with a careful bit of unpacking and packing, a 20x8ft display system (when erected) fitted right in.

I turned up a day early to fit it (my access started the following morning), and drove into the loading area with all the trucks bringing in the big stuff. Following one truck in through the gates I got stopped by a security guard in a golf buggy who asked what I was doing there. He looked surprised when I said I was delivering, no doubt because I was driving a sports car. It must have created the right impression: not only did he forgot to ask for any ID or a pass, he told me to leave it parked outside the loading bay zone to remove the risk of a truck hitting it, and take what I needed up the ramps into the exhibition area! I slipped in and set it all up. There are advantages to daily-ing a 911 – access all areas being one of them.