Porsche 911 (964) Carrera 2: MOTOR Reader's Rides

The Reader: James Sanderson
The Car: Porsche 911 (964) Carrera 2
The Mileage: 170,000km
The Ownership period: 12 years

This feature was originally published in MOTOR’s October 2018 issue

Was this car a dream come true?
I wanted a 911 since I was about five. My neighbour was a guy called Matthew Coleman, who raced Carrera Cup, and his dad had a 911 SC. The first time I went in it, I was like: “yep, I want one of those”. I bought it because I wanted a car that was a little bit of a challenge to drive – more than modern cars with their driver aids.

It’s modified, yes?
It’s in the low 12s, which it’ll run at Heathcote. It has what they call Super Cup camshafts, various internal mods, different exhaust and intake. I accidentally hit first instead of third going over the start finish at Sandown one day and that was the precursor in doing an engine rebuild. I also came first in a CAMS Supersprint series class.

You owned an MX-5 before?
I felt like I got everything I could out of the MX-5 and wanted a challenge. My first impression was the MX-5 was a better car. The 964 had quite soft spring rates and moves around a lot on the standard suspension. The second I tied down the suspension it completely transformed the car. It has coilovers and 964 RS adjustable swaybars.

What’s it been like to own?
The cost of ownership is amazingly low. They are extremely well engineered and unbelievably reliable. You can thrash it on a racetrack every day and it goes, “yep, cool”. It feels rock solid.

You mentioned it wasn’t always this colour?
The car was originally delivered [to Oz] in Mint Green. My understanding is that it was at Porsche Cars Australia and for whatever reason, maybe they had trouble selling it, they fully resprayed the car completely in Horizon Blue.

Would you call it a part of the family?
The car’s called Sally, because it’s the same colour as the one in Cars. And every time I took it to a racetrack every kid under 10 was like, “Sally!” But yeah, Sally’s family. My wife and kids would kill me if I ever sold it. It was my wedding car.