718 Life.

November. With winter approaching and Red soon to be tucked away for another few months, I’ve found myself watching more automotive videos than usual. Some are reviews, some are road tests, and some are simply people having fun with interesting cars. It’s an easy way to get a little driving fix when the weather isn’t cooperating. And every now and then, I come across something that reminds me why I enjoy certain automotive presenters so much. A recent video featuring Chris Harris and Becky Evans really got me thinking about it. There’s something particularly enjoyable about watching two people who are not only genuinely enthusiastic about cars, but who also have the driving ability to explore what those cars can actually do. They aren’t simply walking around something expensive, pointing out the features and telling us how many horsepower it has. They’re driving. And they know what they’re doing. That’s a pretty important distinction for me. I’ve always been drawn to automotive presen...

Winter storage. That time of year is just around the corner, the days are short, we’ve started having morning frosts, and while the salt trucks aren’t out yet, it can’t be that far away. It’s different this year, for obvious reasons. I’m putting two Porsches away instead of one. There will probably be only one thing left to do with the Cayman in the spring. And then that last remaining practical connection to our shared adventures will be gone.  There are all sorts of road-trip clichés about the journey being more important than the destination, enjoying the ride, and how the best memories are made along the way. There’s even the old standby about life being a highway. They all feel just a bit too trite right now.  The journey is better when it’s shared? Absolutely. Except when the person you’ve spent the better part of 40 years sharing those journeys with is no longer around. The road goes on. Sure. It just doesn’t seem quite as interesting without him in the Cayman ahead of ...

Some stories are about cars. Some are about the roads we travel, the places we discover, the ridiculous things we do along the way, and the memories we collect.  And some stories are really about the people we shared them with. This one is about my lifelong friend. My university chum.  My GTS Chronicles partner-in-crime. Today, I’m having to write something I never imagined I would write. Andrew has passed away from cancer, at only 58 years old. There are some people who come into your life for a while and then vanish, and then there are others who become part of the fabric of it. He was one of those people. We have known each other for most of our lives (since university), and early along the way our friendship became intertwined with cars, roads, adventures, laughter, and an awful lot of conversations that probably made considerably more sense to us than they would have to anyone listening in. The GTS Chronicles is one of those things. Two guys trying to capture somethi...

Oasis. Sanctuary. Refuge. Safe haven. Words  that evoke shelter from chaotic times. We all need respite from tough things from time to time, and I can’t deny that the last month has been pretty fraught. Getting caught in the Canada Day flooding while in-between homes certainly has presented a host of stressful challenges. It’s been a busy month, to say the least, packing up the home of ten years to move, then dealing with the flood aftermath both at the new home and at friends’ homes too. And finally getting all our stuff transferred from one place to the other. With some light appearing in the gloom - a basement that is clean and dry (if now 'unfinished'), our furniture and moving boxes all at the new place - we can breathe a little bit. The electrics are back on. The new furnace is working. Life can begin to get back to normal. I need a break. A little haven. A little getaway. A chance to recharge the batteries. To replace the sound of dehumidifiers and shop vacs with som...

This is one July 1st that a lot of Ottawa residents will remember for a long, long time, and not for the reasons anyone would have hoped. An unprecedented 1-in-200-year storm battered Ottawa on Canada Day 2026, dropping up to 167 mm of rain in some areas. The historic deluge flooded thousands of homes, triggered widespread power outages, and forced the city to cancel all official Canada Day festivities. The worst of the damage was concentrated in Ottawa’s west end, right where I live, and right where I had just taken possession of my new home. Oh crap. Environment Canada recorded 118.4 mm of rain at the Ottawa airport, shattering the previous single-day July record of 58.9 mm set back in 1959. The sheer volume of water overwhelmed the storm sewer system, sending water back into thousands of basements. At the same time, the two creeks that wind through my new neighbourhood overflowed their banks, adding overland flooding to an already impossible situation. At the beginning of the storm,...

One of the most common comments I hear about my 718 GTS comes from people who are not car enthusiasts. Usually they're sitting in the passenger seat, looking around the cabin and they've asked how much a car like this costs. The comment is almost always some variation of the same question: "I can't believe it doesn't have XYZ. For that kind of money, shouldn't it have more features?" It's a fair question. After all, we've been conditioned to believe that expensive cars should be loaded with equipment. Ventilated seats. Massaging seats. Automated driving systems. Giant touchscreens. Night vision. Soft-close doors. Hologram generators? Force fields? A seemingly endless list of conveniences and technologies. If you're spending a lot of money on a vehicle, surely it should have everything. But I think there's a big misunderstanding there. People assume all expensive cars are trying to accomplish the same thing. They're not. A luxury car and...