What would Jalopnik's Doug DeMuro drive? A 996 of course!

Asked what he would get for $60K he had this fascinating answer... Which was a long darned way from $60K. Read his full blog post to understand how he got there. I'm just glad he did! http://jalopnik.com/what-car-would-y...000-1758700445

Hmm, well said. Sometimes Jalopnik articles can be, well, how do I say it, full of ****. Yeah, that's it, full of ****.

Interesting. For 60k I would buy a 997.2 4S. Period.

"If I couldn’t afford a 1 Series M, or if I could afford a 1 Series M and something else, I would get a “996” Porsche 911 – the scorned-by-enthusiasts, fried-egg headlights, IMS-bearing-exploding 911 manufactured from 1999 to 2005. I would not get a GT3. I would not get a Turbo. I would get a standard, naturally-aspirated, two-wheel drive model that’s already had the IMS bearing replaced, probably a Cabriolet, which is something you can now buy for around twenty grand. " he states paying $20K - i would much rather purchase a 996 C4S in the low $20's - great car that won't depreciate like a narrow body 996

I was going to post this earlier today when I read it. I was genuinely surprised reading that. I felt like a proud dad for a quick moment.

Isn't this the same dude who chronicled his owning a Ferrari for a year? T

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There was a book about it, but I don't think it was this guy. Think he does or did own one though.

Isn't he driving an Aston Martin right now that keeps self destructing on him? It's been in the shop more than he's driven it?

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Yes it is. He had a 360 Modena and daily drove the car. He did a lot of videos showing the short comings of the car and its strengths in a really funny way. Check him out. He lets his readers pick the cars he buys for the year. After the Ferrari he had a r32 skyline. Then a big yellow h1 hummer, and now he got a Aston Martin vantage with a "full bumper to bumper warranty." Haha (for those that get that joke of his)

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Yup http://youtu.be/j-sjnKkH6rI

I read most of his stuff. He used to work for Porsche North America (I think, definitely Porsche something) before quitting to be a writer/journalist. He's pretty entertaining and he doesn't give two ****s if you don't like his stuff. Not everyone cup of tea but that's what makes the world go round. He also famously bought a land rover with a carmax warranty and he documents that religiously. Spoiler: The warranty company did not come out ahead.

I read it, thought it was pretty entertaining but a BMW M1 as his dream car??? For $60k I'd buy the newest 911 Turbo, GT2, or GT3 the $60k would get me. But his logic for a $20k 996 makes sense. It really is surprising more people haven't woken up to the fact that after you've invested $1,500- $3,500 to eliminate the IMS issue what you have is a kick *** 911 that you've got under $30k into.

The one think I have noticed it the only people that bash 996's are "porshophiles". Everyone else seems to think it is a great car.

I've owned exactly 1 Italian car and have never owned a British one. My funniest story about British cars was a good friend owned a Series II XKE convertible. He was invited to a Jaguar owners club meeting at the largest local Jaguar dealer in the Boston area. The dealer "did up the meeting in style". There was actually a small string quartet playing background music. They served up some excellent pastries and coffee. During the introductory remarks, the tour guide remarked about how much the Jaguar QA had improved (as at the time, Jaguar and virtually all British cars had this unsavory reliability reputation). So the tour of the facility (including service) was done. There in the service bay was a relatively new Jaguar XKS Coupe with the dashboard missing. So I casually asked the tour leader why was that car in the service bay without the dashboard. He casually answered: "oh, some electrical problem, under warranty, they're fixing". Enough said about British electrical nightmares. As they say: "why do the British drink warm beer?. Because they have Lucas refrigerators". Lucas, Prince of Darkness. Re Italian Cars: I owned an Alfa Romeo Spyder Veloce (for about 4 months). Easily the most unreliable piece of crap ever made. There was so much wrong with the basic design let alone the factory QA I can't even start to write them here. Here is just one. The battery was in the trunk and held down by a rubber strap. The strap broke while going around a corner (I can only surmise this as I was not riding in the trunk). The battery then tipped over and acid ate its way through the bottom of the trunk. Fortunately, it never got into the gas tank below the floor or "kaboom".

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The Alfa design for securing the battery was not a rubber strap. So chalk that one up to the previous owner. However your problem has to be chalked up to you for not having properly inspected the car to make sure that such a situation did not exist. And if the battery sat on its side for so long that the spilled acid ate a hole in the floor...well that again points to your own negligence.

Okay, perhaps I was negligent in not inspecting my trunk to make sure the battery was not lying on its side with acid burning through the trunk floor! Likewise, negligence on my not making sure that a nuclear missile in a silo somewhere in the mid-west did not have a short circuit in some launching mechanism. So here's another example of gross incompetence by the Italian designers of the Alfa: The steering wheel horn ring: This Alfa had a dual purpose ring on the steering wheel. The outer chrome one was for the horn. Inside that ring was a small black "hub" which was for flashing the headlights - when you were overtaking another car. The gap between these two separate movable items was extremely tight. And the chrome outer ring was made of some sort of cheap pot metal so it developed oxidation. That caused the space between these two moving parts to become so tight that when you beeped the horn you actually also flashed the lights. No problem right? Problem was when after doing this, you did not realize that the center hub had also been pushed slightly in and did not return back to its "off" position. So during the day, you'd park the car, walk away not realizing that your headlights were still on. You'd return to find a dead battery. This happened twice to me before I figured out what was happening. Here's another: The "stop" on the passenger seat back. There were two small metal "nubs" on the seat back bottom which came to rest on a "hard" surface opposite them on the edge of the seat bottom. Those "nubs" were also made out of some pot metal. One day a fairly buxom woman climbed into the passenger seat, and as she sat back to buckle her seat belt, the pot metal nubs broke, the seat back fell backwards and so did she. Now if I was going to make any sort of advance on her, I guess I should thank the incompetent designers. Last example: The oil filter casing: This car had a metal oil filter casing with a cartridge that went inside it. The filter and cartridge was mounted with a long bolt that went completely through the rather long filter (maybe about 6 inches long) then into the engine block. It was, of course, upside down, hanging down with the bolt at the bottom. Two problems with this design: 1. You could not unscrew the bolt without hot oil running down your arms - unless you had a lift - which I did not. 2. It was very difficult to a. find the female bolt hole to re-insert the bolt into the block through the filter casing and b. it was equally difficult to insure you had a good seal. I know this after re-starting the car and having about a quart of oil find its way onto the ground below the car.

Time for a counterpoint & in defense of Alfa engineering, I owned a 1985 GTV6 for 20 years, the first 12 it was my only car. Not only that, I'd think nothing of driving from LA to Laguna Seca or Willow Springs, running time trials all weekend and then driving back to LA on Sunday night. My car (for which I paid $2700) had over 150k miles on it then and never once let me down. I did routine maintenance and never encountered the supposed engineering challenges Alfa detractors so often quote . I found the engineering to be absolutely brilliant - my car had a rear mounted transaxle with clutch at the back too, deDion rear axle, inboard disk brakes, a V6 engine with a sound as exotic as a Ferrari. Plenty fast enough and I always felt safe, even at the ragged edge or through the corkscrew at Laguna. La bella machina