Story: Brett Read
Buying a Porsche and Doing a Road Trip in the Eastern States
Wind the clock back to 2012; I was looking to reacquaint myself with the joys of Porsche ownership. I was spending lots of time on carsales. com.au looking for a 911 to enjoy as a weekend car and to do club events in. I have always loved Porsches and like many of us, had always dreamed of owning a 911 Porsche. But my love of the brand doesn’t stop at the rear engine legend that is the 911. I remember falling in love with the 928 back in 1978 when I saw one parked outside a restaurant in Surfers Paradise, Queensland. At the time I promised myself I’d own one of them and that dream came true in the late nineties when I bought 1986 5L 32 valve 928S. I remember when I first saw the shark like nose of the 928 I thought it was an amazing piece of design and then when I owned one I discovered what an amazing piece of engineering it was as well. At the time I was a keen skydiver and used to travel to York or down south to a drop zone near Darken. The 928 is a fantastic GT car and a perfect car for eating up the miles on those weekends. But now I was looking to tick off 911 ownership on the bucket list. I had been looking on all the websites for the right 911. It needed to be something that Jen and I could spend a comfortable weekend away in plus I could take it to the track. I had driven a few air cooled 911’s in WA and as I had few spare days in Brisbane after a work trip I was searching for likely candidates in south east Queensland. It was then that I saw a 996 Turbo that was selling for a bargain price. It was still just out of my price range, but I thought what the hell, I’m here I have time, why not check it out. If you haven’t driven a 911 Turbo, it’s something that you should put on your bucket list. I was hooked, what an amazing car! I have to make a confession here, I am a lover of horsepower and turbo lag is something you get used to. Besides compared to the WRX STI I had owned the 996 Turbo lag was insignificant. So now I was experiencing something that many Porsche Club members are all too familiar with – price creep. The 996 Turbo in Qld hadn’t been cared for as well as I would have liked, so while it wasn’t the one it took my search in a new direction. As I researched more about the 996 Turbo I came to understand that 34
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the Turbo, the GT2, GT3 and Porsche Cup cars have the same engine, the magnificent mezger engine. This engine is different to what’s in the 996 Carrera. The mezger engine is a dry sump engine that is very much a race engine. So my search was on for a 996 Turbo. I found one in Melbourne that fitted the bill, and put a deposit on it just before Christmas. The engine had been moderately tuned with a Milltek exhaust, diverter valves and stage 2 remap and was now producing just on 500 HP compared to the stock 420 HP. The pre-purchase inspection identified a couple of things that needed maintenance the biggest being a slipping clutch. At 89,000 km the clutch was not coping with the load of full turbo boost. The seller agreed to replace the clutch and I started planning to collect the car in January and do a road trip in the Eastern States before bringing it back to WA. The final plan was to collect the car and drive to Grafton in northern NSW to have the Australia Day long weekend with friends and then take two weeks to drive south along the coast to Melbourne and then do the Great Ocean Road and on to Adelaide where the 911 would go on the train. What a trip, driving a supercar on a 5,000km, two week road trip over some spectacular roads and parts of this big country is the stuff dreams are made of. Waiting for it took me back to that feeling of being a 5 year old waiting for Christmas. Finally the day arrived; Jen and I landed in Melbourne and collected the car. We stayed the night with my daughter who is studying in Melbourne and then the next day transferred the rego and bought some road trip essentials before heading off in the afternoon for NSW. We took 3 days to drive to Grafton through the flat farming areas of southern NSW before getting into more interesting roads over the Great Dividing Range and through the Blue Mountains. The open roads provided a perfect opportunity to get to know the highway capability of the car, 3rd gear full boost and the feeling of being launched past road trains is an addictive feeling.