[MLB]

My greatest joy and surprise with this car has been how excited my wife gets about going for drives together! Especially when there's a group of people like in Wisconsin's beautiful Door County last fall.

So I have the fun of learning how to work on it and maintain it so it's in tiptop shape for our seasonal drives together; a time speed distance rally in a few weeks, Porsche parades, beautiful sunny Georgia last summer, Vermont this summer, and who knows where next? But driving Road America with the Milwaukee region PCA is on the short list...

Have a great time together with this car!

--michael

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[flash]

i have to disagree about ferrari vs porsche.  take ANY porsche to a swanky hotel and have the valet park it out front.  now take an average run of the mill ferrari 308 and do the same.  see which one gets the attention.

 

it is not a fair statement to say that the ferrari was more common.  keep in mind that up until recently, ferrari did not make a lot of models in any given year.  porsche has always made more models per year than ferrari.

 

i wish this were not true, but i can tell you from personal experience, having just spent $170k+ on a very distinctive porsche, that it is still just a 911, and that's how most people see it.  "oh - nice porsh" is about all you get.  any ferrari would generate more attention than this car.  it is what it is.

 

and if you think a porsche is built to anywhere near the standards of a ferrari, try revving your porsche engine up to 8k some time.  ferrari engines have been doing that safely for decades.

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[ds968]

Maybe this conversation belongs on the Porsche vs Ferrari thread ( we have one, lol ) . Ferrari engines may indeed rev to 8 K rpm, but they need to be rebuilt every other year...as does practically everything else that moves in that car. Every Ferrari owner will tell you the car spends a third of the year in the shop for one repair or another ( not for preventive maintenance, but to fix broken stuff ) For the most part they are a crappy car in a superb body . I could have, and still can afford many Ferraris but I've never owned one and never will because I sinply won't tolerate taking the car to a mechanic once out of every three times you drive it. In that respect they just do not measure up to Porsches . But yeah, the hotel or restaurant valet preference is undeniably in favor of Ferraris . And for good reason, they are pure eye candy . And why is the 968 special ? Because that same valet will park it in the front row next to the Bentleys, Aston Martins, Rolls Royces and Ferraris and in front of many 911s, even new ones. Not many other Porsches get that honor, although a mint condition 928 GTS always manages to get the royal treatment at swanky venues.

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[Inkedupfatboy]

To be completely honest, the next time I buy a convertible, if there is indeed a next time (which I doubt), it will be a Toyota Solara convertible. They look great ( I have liked them since I sold them), and everything under the body is pure Camry so oodles of parts for decades and cheap to work on.

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[flash]

lol - i know plenty of ferrari owners that don't have their cars in the shop at all.  they have gotten a bad rap over the years, and certainly enough of them do spend a lot of time in the shop, but so does the 968, and relative to the price of the car, probably a lot more expensive to maintain.  this site is mostly about how to fix them after all.

 

camrys suck!

 

all that being said, the 968 is a great car, and will likely attain some form of status years down the road.  i think it will always be limited though by it provenance.

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[Langley968]

There is always a first time for everything...

Never thought I would read that a "dude" likes the looks of a Solara and would consider buying one! There's a first time for everything!

Have had 3 Toyotas in our family in the past (wife and daughters vehicles) and they are very reliable! But the most boring vehicles to drive! JMHO

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[jimham968]

Ok, why are people talking about the relative values of Ferraris versus Porsches and including the Dino 246 (and the prior 206 also) in the conversation? Dino's were not Ferraris until the 308. Sure, they were designed, manufactured and sold by Ferrari, but they were not named Ferraris by Ferrari. Enzo Ferrari himself during their time frame was quoted as saying "a Ferrari is a 12 cylinder car". While surely this is a technicality, and a similar one to the VW/Porsche 914, at least the 968 was considered by Porsche itself as a Porsche from the beginning, if not by the "Porsche purists". At least we have that over those $M Dino's!

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[Inkedupfatboy]

Thanks for the slam. This is why I don't like being on car forums. It seems every time I express an opinion, someone is happy to lambaste me for it.

Well, later. I have other stuff to do.

Bob, why don't you make it easy and just delete my profile and login.

God I am so sorry I ever bought this stupid thing.

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[Kaj Hallstrom]

....and the story goes on and on.....but I will leave it here and go for a ride...top down!!

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[Rap]

Inked, Ds and I take shots at each other all the time. It's called busting chops. Don't be so thin skinned. It's all in fun. Isn't the solara a chicks car anyway?

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[Bulti]

Ferraris usually rev higher than Porsches not because they are better build. More cylinders means smaller and lighter pistons, so it is normal for them to rev higher.


About the sound: can't compare a 12 cylinder V and a boxer 6. I like both sounds very much. They are different as night and day, but is one better than the other? If I would choose the greatest sound, it would be the Carerra GT's V10.


FYI: the GT3 revs to 9000 rpm. Not bad for a 6 cylinder.

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[ds968]

FYI: the GT3 revs to 9000 rpm. Not bad for a 6 cylinder.

Big deal, so does a Honda S 2000 . And that's a 4 cyl. But it has pathetically low torque so you NEED to get it to 9 K rpm to make it move, lol.

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[ds968]

Inked, I'll back up what RAP said, but aside from the busting chops aspect of this, fundamentally what may be perceived as a slam is nothing more than simply someone's personal opinion about any given thing so entirely a subjective matter , and thus should really not be taken with any degree of concern , or seriously ...


Heck, there may be people who detest 968s and have no problem expressing those views on other forums.

We should probably reach out to those people , but would have to first check what the visiting hours are at mental institutions, so we can go see them. :-) :-)

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[968Syncro]

I think the best comparison is to the 944.  As opposed to the 968, the 944 was much loved, has a racing pedigree, etc.   I still wonder why people will buy the base 944 Turbo (86-88, non-S) as opposed to buying a 968 for the same money.  It is a lesser car, but the 944 got into the blood of a whole generation of people.  I predict that 968s will only do as well as 944 Turbo prices and in general never go higher than those.  Perhaps it is similar to 356 where the older Speedsters and Convertible D (among other models) are always priced higher than the 356C which was a far superior car.

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[94SilverCab]

One thing to keep in mind, they made 76,000 356's and only 12,000 968s...you just need t hold on for 50 years or so...LOL

 

Jay

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[ds968]

I think the best comparison is to the 944.  As opposed to the 968, the 944 was much loved, has a racing pedigree, etc.   I still wonder why people will buy the base 944 Turbo (86-88, non-S) as opposed to buying a 968 for the same money.  It is a lesser car, but the 944 got into the blood of a whole generation of people.  I predict that 968s will only do as well as 944 Turbo prices and in general never go higher than those.  Perhaps it is similar to 356 where the older Speedsters and Convertible D (among other models) are always priced higher than the 356C which was a far superior car.

It's absolutely inconceivable to me why anyone would spend the same amount of money for a 944 Turbo ( even a last generation one - S ) which could be spent buying a 968, a far superior car in every respect ..and IMHO in a totally different league than the 951.. Don't get me wrong, I've had 944s for 18 years , drove the 951 and it's fine, but still no comparison as far as I'm concerned . Not to mention that the 951 has already looked " dated " for a long while now , whereas the 968 lines still make it seem as if it's a newly released model .


But if someone buys the 951 to race, those engines can be built up to a lot more power than you can a 968 so I hear they make awesome track cars.. I can see the appeal in that sense..

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