Written by Kohei Takada
One day, my five-year-old son said to me,
"I like my mom's Golf better than my dad's Porsche because it's so small and noisy."
This made me feel depressed. It made me feel really depressed.
My beloved only son has completely rejected my beloved Porsche. And above all, Porsche has lost to Volkswagen. As a doting father and car enthusiast, this is a serious problem for me. Because every day I think about how wonderful it would be to keep driving this old Porsche 911 (a 1993 Type 964 Carrera II), which has already been in production for 31 years, for the rest of my life, and then hand it over to my son.
The 964 Carrera 2 arrived in our home around the same time as my son was born. If you think about it from a modern perspective, buying an old Porsche when a child is about to be born would be met with criticism, but I couldn't complain. But I had a firm belief.
"Now that I have a son, I want to set an example for him as a father who never gives up on what he loves no matter how old he gets, and who continues to pursue the things he loves to the fullest."
Needless to say, my wife was shocked. Her face clearly said, "Are you stupid?" But I managed to force my way through by saying, "Don't worry, the 911 has a rear seat. I even got a special child seat, so it's no problem."
He looked at the car nut with even more amazement as he gleefully installed a special child seat into the narrow rear seat of the 911, but in the end he somehow accepted it. Yes, for a husband to remain a car nut, a wife's tolerant understanding is essential.
I've traveled in the 964 several times with my small baby and understanding wife. The interior of this generation of 911 is tighter than I imagined, and the body rigidity is surprisingly strong (so much so that it's been mocked as being like a safe), so the distance between me and my family feels tight and intense, making me feel happy while driving. It's not as spacious and comfortable as a modern minivan, but I much prefer this tightly protected, unified space to the individually separate spaces.
The 911 sports car has a one-of-a-kind chassis layout. Its iconic element is the air-cooled, horizontally opposed six-cylinder (commonly known as "flat-six") engine mounted behind the rear-wheel drive shaft. Since its debut as the Type 901 in 1964, the air-cooled generation of 911s has evolved with the times through the Type 930 and Type 964, but its basic structure and styling remained unchanged, and it survived for an incredible 34 years until the final evolution, the Type 993, ceased production in 1998.
The dry sound that is unique to air-cooled flat-six engines has a unique rotation feel that changes rhythmically from a flutter at low speeds to a swoosh as the speed increases, and it must have sounded like a lullaby to the ears and body of the baby sitting in the back seat; I remember my son always sleeping soundly and comfortably every time we drove.
That feeling must have been imprinted deep within his small body as a primal experience. They say the soul of a triplet is strong. Dad believes that the noise of an air-cooled Porsche engine is annoying, so that's definitely not what he really thinks.
On the other hand, as a pure car enthusiast, I feel that the most appealing thing about the Carrera 2, a Type 964 model that evolved from the air-cooled generation of 911 to a model that is almost the final model, is that it allows the driver to truly interact with the car.
The true joy of sports driving is facing yourself through your car. Yes, that is the very spirit of sport. My 964 has a 5-speed manual transmission. Starting with this generation, Porsche gave the 911 an automatic mechanism called Tiptronic, which greatly expanded the range of drivers, but I firmly believe that if you are truly focused on driving a car, a manual is the only option. The joy of using your own hands and feet to more directly control a sports car like a Porsche 911 is truly the ultimate joy for a car enthusiast.
He is stoic when driving. He focuses on the car without thinking about anything else. The fun of the 911 is that if you let your guard down, it will clearly show how badly you are driving. That's why the more he drives it, the more he wants to surpass the car. He sometimes drives on the circuit and also takes lessons from professionals. As a result, he has fewer opportunities to drive with his family, and recently he has been spending most of his time driving the 964 alone.
"It's more fun to ride from the side than from behind. It's fun to watch Daddy riding."
The other day, I went for a drive for the first time in a while, and my 5-year-old son, sitting in the passenger seat for the first time, said, "I see, it's more fun to drive next to him, at eye level, rather than behind him." I'd be so happy if he could one day inherit this one-of-a-kind sports car, filled with a unique worldview not found in modern cars.
