718 Life.

Winter is here and I've noticed something. I put the car away late this year, close to the end of November, which is a record. Perhaps global warming...? But since that time, my viewing of Porsche-related videos, and musings in the online forum have increased inversely proportionally to the amount of driving I've gotten to do in November / December. Coincidence? I think not. Obviously there's no substitute for getting in the cockpit and seeking out some pristine blacktop, so the Internet makes for a (very) second-best alternative during the cold months. If there was a counter on some of the videos I've rewatched from back in those early days of aspiring to Porsche-ownership, it would be easily in the double digits now. With the 718 getting rather long in the tooth for the YouTubers, who crave the newest, the latest, the updated more than anything, there's little in the way of new content online about this platform. Occasionally I find a little something - perhaps a ...

November 6, 2023. That's when I put 'Red' away for the winter last year. Reading back over that post I see there was snow on the ground and that sounded the death knell for sporty driving for another season. This year, we've extended a little longer (a week so far) and it looks like this weekend is shaping up to offer 10 degrees, no precipitation, and sunshine! So with a bit of luck from the weather gods, I'll get a short final drive out before the long sleep. I've already done the proper deep clean needed for storage (doesn't she look good?), but with no bugs and clean roads, I think its worth warming up the cold tires for one last romp. I've discovered that with the seat heater and steering wheel heat on, and the fan blowing hot into the lower half of the cabin, the Boxster's cockpit is quite delightful to be in on a cool day, even with the top down. It's warm enough on Friday to take her to work one last time this year, and after a day in cubi...

Anticipation. 2023 really was all about anticipation. The order for our cars being confirmed. Then the process of watching each of them pass each manufacturing milestone. The lead up to European Delivery. The morning of the big day. Delicious anticipation. Then returning to Canada and waiting once more. The anticipation rising again as we tracked their progress across the Atlantic. Sitting in the Halifax port for weeks. Then rail-bound for Toronto and another wait at the Autoport. Finally making the trip down to London to get our hands on them once again. Lots and lots of anticipation leading up to the reward of ownership.  And now, those anticipations have morphed - evolved into something new. Now, instead of anticipating just  getting  the car, I anticipate the next drive. The next turn of the key. The next trip downstairs to the garage (ok maybe that one's a bit much). Take this upcoming Thanksgiving weekend for example. It's a little over a week away, and I've decided...

I remember someone (my grandfather, was it?) saying if you walk away from your car and then turn to look back at it, that tells you something. I've had the Boxster for just over a year now, and I think I have developed a crick in my neck from all the gazing back as I leave it in a parking spot. A year is as good a point in time as any to reflect and take stock of what was a pretty momentous car purchase for me. If you've read my posts right from the start here, you'll know what a long and sometimes tortuous journey it was to get to the point where I picked it up from the factory in Germany as the full-fledged owner. Throughout the whole process, I didn't have much in the way of doubts as to what I was trying to do - not a lot of second-guessing the decision to go ahead and buy a very expensive sports car. Now, a year later, I'm happy to say I don't have any doubts that it was a great idea. I've not regretted it for a second. Not the decision to buy, not the ...

Family fun? This weekend is an opportunity to stretch the legs of the Boxster a little, this time with a few 'brothers'. I manage to corral three other GTS owners, including my GTS Chronicles compatriot, into a Friday afternoon fun run. The weather is perfect, and we meet up late afternoon, in the local grocery store parking lot for a quick pre-drive chat, photos-taking, and radio setting-upping. Leaving the route guidance in the Carmine Red Cayman's hands, I bring up the rear in the tail-end Charlie position, bracketing a nice Guards Red Cayman and a brand-spanking new GT Silver Boxster. All GTSs. All manuals. All silver wheels. Kind of an anomalous group in this day and age, and we like it that way. It's less than an hour south to the border with New York State, straight down highway 416. A brief stop at border entry, where our quartet raises a few eyebrows, and we are ready to do some exploring in the region around Ogdensburg. We are lucky enough to have our group le...

Back in Canada. After transiting the US easily through Maine, there's always a sense of relief when crossing back into Canada. This time, however, things are a little different, as for the first time ever, we are stopped and asked to pull over for a search. Two (very polite) Canadian Border Security staff proceed to take the keys to the 718 (!!!!) and give it a good going over. As we watch, we wonder at first if they know about the frunk, but sure enough, they find it after some fiddling with the remote. 15 minutes later they return the keys with a smile, I check for smudges (none!) and we are back on our way. In short order we are crossing the harbour bridge and making our way along the nice back road to my folks (after stopping to let my relatives check in at their hotel). The Boxster revels once again in the small stretch of nicely-paved back road before having to slow and carefully navigate the erratically-placed HUGE potholes along NB Route 860 where my parents live. It really...

NB-bound again! This weekend brought some driving delight as we (my daughter and I) took to the roads of Quebec and Maine to head east to the Maritimes once more.  This time it was a bit of a different adventure, as we were providing route guidance to my lovely aunt and uncle who happened to be visiting Canada from the UK, and were making their own driving pilgrimage from Montreal to see my folks. Who better to lead them through the nice roads and small towns of Maine than us in a bright red chase vehicle? Another bright (and hot) sunny day greets us as we hit the road from Ottawa, escaping the snarl of rush hour traffic only to hit it again entering the largest city in la belle province. No matter, as the schedule is relaxed and fluid, with a full two days ahead to make it to NB if we wish.    We meet my relatives with their rental Toyota hybrid  (or hire car as they called it). Decent enough for tripping, comfy and all, but clearly the GTS would not be taxed - rath...

Big day today. 'Big'.  It's all relative. This afternoon I'm tackling the small (tiny) windshield 'bruises' on my GTS. The first one I picked up a scant 150 kms into ownership, in Germany, the other on the drive back from picking up the car in London, Ontario. One on each side, driver and passenger. Both a very similar pattern, in that there are actually three little marks to each of them. Presumably when the rock struck the window the first time it rolled and struck it a second and third times, creating smaller divots. In each case. So, six impact points. Ugh. Fortunately I guess, neither set have resulted in anything other than some gouging out of the glass at the surface. No deeper chip, or 'bullseye' and definitely no cracks. So, lucky there, as replacing a whole windshield is not really something I want to do. I mean, come on! The car's barely a year old! Cue the Internet, and the wonder that is YouTube, where I can ply my way through countless ...

Time to spend some money. First service interval is at hand. 15,000 kms or one year, whichever comes first. A simple oil change and visual inspection is all, although I use the term 'simple' rather loosely as Porsche charges a full two hours labour to do the job. So it can't be that simple, right? Right? Let's see: oil and filter costs amount to $135 which is pretty on par with the Hyundai, even cheaper actually, given that I change that oil every 5000 kms at a cost of around $80 for oil and filter each time. The killer is the labour cost - double my regular mechanic, and double the amount of time. So, four times the labour cost. Yikes. But...they are super-specialized mechanics, right? Dealing with something super-complex, right? So worth the hefty labour cost, right?  Well, actually, on the 4.0 litre, the oil changes are apparently relatively straightforward, as long as you can get at the underneath of the car. Which, thanks to my GTS Chronicles companion and his gar...

What makes a car your own? Purchase? Polish? Customization? All of the above I think. So to that end, I got to watch / help as my GTS Chronicles Cayman buddy installed the shifter assembly from the GT4 in his GTS. It's a bit of a nerve-wracking project at first, as one has to 'unsnap' various (expensive) trim pieces in order to access the necessary components to remove and replace. It took a bit of force and elbow grease to get some of them to budge, but in the end, he accomplished that whole task. Things do certainly fit together well, with a high-quality feel to everything. The modularity is impressive too, as you pop out the radio, the climate control unit, console buttons and such. The end result is a shifter that sits just shy of an inch shorter than stock, without changing the aesthetic.  Sure, you can change to aftermarket shift knobs that achieve the same result with less effort, but they don't look and feel stock. The benefit of doing it this way is, if you li...

Life is pretty busy, so you have to grab the opportunities to get away when you can, am I right? And what better way to do that than behind the wheel of the Boxster? Saturday mornings have become a thing - get up early and get out for a little road action before the day's activities kick off. Between chores and errands, teenager events, and socializing with friends, the weekends are busy. Even finding the time for a proper car wash is a challenge! Thank goodness for pressure washers to quickly blast the bugs off after a quick outing. This week I map out a little longer route; Google Maps telling me it is somewhere around 200 kms. Getting up early means I can get the 2.5 hours of driving in before a nice breakfast at Scottie's after, and then 'start' my day. I slap on some sunscreen and then carefully wash my hands clean - can't get that evil stuff on the car's interior 'coz I've yet to find a product that truly gets rid of it properly. Maybe steam? Grabb...

Refinement. If there was a single word to describe the continuous progression of the Porsche Boxster, this might be the one. For Porsche in general, actually. Just look at the 911. Over the decades it has continually evolved, each successive generation building on the prior. You can see it in the design language, always familiar, a continual evolution.  Same goes for all four generations of the Boxster platform. Each one taking the good bits from the one before and refining them into something even better. So let's talk about jacking up the car, either with a hand jack, or something as posh as the QuickJack Andrew has in place in his garage. Getting a jack underneath such a low car, and then getting it properly positioned is a bid of a faff, but with a little ingenuity and trial and testing, we came up with something that worked a treat in the end. Hunting around on the internet located some commercially readily-available solutions, but for rather high costs!  When we took a c...

Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name…  A couple of weekends ago I decided to make the trek from my home in Ottawa, Ontario to my home home in French Village, New Brunswick, to visit my folks for an extended weekend. This time around, to make it a more interesting route than the main highway through Canada, instead I drove through the little roads of Quebec and Maine to head out to the East Coast. I spent the night at a little motel in Woburn just adjacent to the Canada US border, before doing the second leg from there to mum and dad's. This was the first time I had brought the Boxster along this route that I know so well (having travelled it for the past 30 years!). It's fun to visit old little bits of twisty roads in this new car, remembering what it was like to drive in my two CRXs, my Civic SiR, my RSX, my M3, and my two S2000s along the same topography. As predicted, the calm of the Boxster cabin and the poise of the chassis over even a few rough patches m...