I hit two more today - A Nissan dealership and a Porsche dealership. We originally planned to take a drive in the GT-R at Nissan but apparently the only one they ever had was bought by a passerby as it was rolling off the trailer. Fortunately they had a nice modified Mitsubishi Evo 8 that some schmuck had bought, modded, and given back to them. It had a boost controller and cams I believe and put around 360 to the wheels.

I didn't even have to ask twice to drive it, even at my age. He just said "sure" and got out of the drivers seat. I was expecting to have to work on him a bit.

I've felt 360whp before but this just seemed faster. It was loud too, and I loved the noise the turbo made. The owner had brembo brakes installed so it stopped like a beast. We hit an 80 degree corner at 40mph and it took it efortlessly.

Amazingly my mother drove it significantly faster than I did, hitting 100 on a stretch where I only took it to 80 (which MIGHT have taken 8 seconds, if that). It was really weird seeing the salesman obviously get turned on by my mom driving stick shift, he kept commenting, "go baby go" or "I want to see your mom drive that again" I'm thinking please don't *** in the back seat now...Well I guess you can. I'm not actually interested in it, so do what you want

If I had to trade the 8 for something, I would get that Evo. We loved it.


Next we traveled west, into the suburbs, to visit a Mercedes-Porsche dealership. We aimed to hit the GT2 but when we got there we found it roped off for display...so getting it out for a test drive was out of the question.

This salesman was basically the same person as the guy at the Lamborghini dealership. He took some working. We took a tour of cars and listen to him talk about them. Eventually when we got to the end he actually OFFERED us a test drive in the 911 Turbo. Unfortunately, he wouldn't let ME drive it. Oh come on if the goddamn Gallardo salesman let me drive the thing you can let me drive this Porsche. Oh well, a ride will suffice for now, after all we were "just browsing".

Frankly it didn't seem at all special, considering the Evo we just drove. It's more powerful, torquier obviously, and louder. The brakes leave something to be desired and I'd tell you about the cornering but we didn't find any corners. It generally feels more solid than the Evo, but it just didn't have the "WOW" that the Gallardo had.

The problem with the 911 Turbo, is just that. It's nothing particularly special, its your basic fast car. If I was going to spend that type of money on a car, I would much rather get something that had a big unique draw, like the Gallardo which looks like a star wars fighter on wheels, or the GT2 which everyone knows and recognizes as not being the average Porsche. Couple that with the fact that it looks the exact same as most of the other Porsches....I don't know, I wouldn't buy that car.

I present to you the business cards of the salesmen, their specific information is covered just in case:



I think I'm going to start a collection of these cards. Maybe get some holographic versions and start my own trading card game. "I've got a holographic Nick from Ferrari, I'll give it to you for your Jason from Bentley!"

 

lol ! nice

 

Hahahhaha

 

Good stuff. I remember spending a full day going around to dealerships in Dallas area when I was 18-20 test driving what ever cars they would allow us in. Back then, as far as used cars were concerned, most of the places would take a copy of your license and send you off w/ no salesman.

 

Were it so easy today...

 

Meeting a salesman and giving him the whole pre-test drive spiel is nowhere near as bad as sitting down afterwards for all the b.s. and all the bombarding you with phone calls after you leave. It'd be nice not to have to go through all that torture and just set up a test drive with the internet dept. (if highline dealers even have a dedicated one)---copy my license, toss me the keys, I'll be back in an hour or two.

 

Wow that is cool, so you were not impressed with the Porsche 911? I heard that from others too that the 911 's are not all that, nice car, but they lack a little something that its GT2 counter part has. I think the rawness factor is it .

Thats cool you get to do that, maybe next time you will be able to test drive a GT-R.

 

So, you're comparing a car you drove to a car you didn't drive. How can you make a fair comparison between the two? I've been a passenger and a driver in an RX-8. It really didn't feel very special in the passengers seat. Was a blast driving though. Not the same.

 

Fair enough. I'm just saying it at least from the passenger seat its simply not as special feeling as I expected it.

 

All Evo's come with Brembo brakes.