European 996 adventures

Home is Perth, but have been living in Netherlands for just over 3 years.  Never owned a Porsche before (have a major weakness for Mk2 Escorts) but wanted a car that fulfilled these criteria: 1) 2 door, manual, RWD 2) fast and nimble enough for the odd track day 3) back seat for the kids 4) under A$20k 5) tatty enough so I'm not scared of putting more kms on it, taking it to the track, leaving it outside or driving it in all weather, kids doing kiddy things to the rear seats, wife driving it etc.  My philosophy towards cars is that I want them to be a bit scared of me, not me scared of them.  Look after the mechanicals, then use as intended. The only cars that passed these filters were the BMW M46 M3 and the Porsche 996.  Wife preferred the 996 (buying her a hotlap of the Nordschleife in a 997GT3 a few years ago had sowed that seed) So after 2 years of dithering, interneting and man-maths I finally found what I was looking for in Sept 2015.  A non-silver, 1999 C2 manual coupe with the added bonus of M030 suspension, 220 LSD, 18" GT3 look rims. About 175000kms, listed at under £10k near London.  Filled a backpack full of Euros, jumped on Easyjet to Gatwick, and met the seller nearby.  Quick check of the books, did my own PPI in about 20mins, decided to roll the dice and headed off to the bank to do the deal.  Sorted out ownership transfer online, and then drove to Dover to catch the ferry back to Netherlands.  All took about 12 hours.

Congrats. Looks like a beaut! Nice choice on colour too from one blue 996 owner to another.

Damn they are cheap there! At it's cheapest that would have been $35-40k here. Well done.

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They were cheaper! Supposedly around 6k pounds last year but the uk marketing is going up a gen 2 is now 12k plus from what I hear if your lucky.

I LOVE STORIES LIKE THIS LIVIN THE DREAM  WELL DONE

Hughesy, STOP SHOUTING! :-)

Well, things are not so good looking up close.  It has been keyed at some stage, the rims are kerbed and a bit shonky, the front and rear bumpers have seen better days. It has a sticky lifter which takes about 20 seconds to quieten down, but then she runs great.  I had to fit new mufflers and front discs + pads to pass Dutch MOT and also had to rewire the rear foglamp to the other side, and source some LHD headlights.  All that took me a day or two and about €1000 (did it myself with a hand from a mate).  Road tax is brutal here at about €750/year. Pictures are a bit grainy due to small pic size limit (fixed now using photo bucket)

PFA picture allowance is woeful at best.. - Admin, maybe allow users to purchase upgraded accounts with more picture space - Meanwhile, create a imgur.com account and drag and drop your pictures to it for 'easy right click / insert URL' into your post for unlimited and BIG pictures..! Back to the story

Kerbed rims can be repaired at least and shouldn't cost too much. Bumpers are bumpers and can be resprayed or even better get a second set and swap between them depending on what you're doing. Get yourself a good detail with some sealant and wax over the top and it should make the imperfections a lot less noticeable. 750 euros a year sounds pretty painful, in Victoria we're now just over $800 AUD in some areas which seems to go straight toward setting up more speed cameras, traffic lights, slower speed limits, cops sitting in streets with their speed guns, cops hiding in bushes with speed guns.

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Well over here it's pay-to-play; no demerit points, just fines for speeding.  However 50km/hr over is bye bye licence.  However, 130km/hr freeways and Germany is just over an hour away...

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We all dream of Autobahns over here... and our dollar to go up so we can afford Porsche parts from overseas. Bet your keen to the car on track and from the sounds of it the infamous Nordschleife at that .

Once winter had passed its worst, first track day at Zandvoort in late March.  Great circuit; nice elevation changes, mix of fast and slow parts, blind crests and a good long front straight. Some nice machinery on track - 996 GT3, 991GT3RS, couple of GT4's (very impressive) and lots of M3's.  Even a couple of Ferraris.

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Shout Away Hughesy, stories like these are worth shouting over I reckon. Good on you Avon.   great car for a great price all of which will add up to great experiences and memories for you and your wife. Keyed..? stone ships.. gutter rash..  who cares if it drives and puts a smile on your face.  Your car has character and that's what matters.  So many people are wound up on materialistic sh*t these days and would rather put their cars in the stupid garage all day and worry about the future value..  Go to work to earn money.  Buy a Porsche to drive and have fun. When I lived in Germany a few years ago I was close to just buying a few 986s which had clearly had interesting lives but I could afford them and I would have enjoyed myself over there far more.  I didn't do it and yep, I regret it.  That's why I love to hear stories like yours.  Good on you and enjoy Oh and keep us updated with your adventures in the 996 as well.

Currently in Alsace - Eastern France as the kids have a two week school break. On the way down through Germany discovered that the slight vibration at the front end at 200km/hr develops into quite an alarming shudder at 222km/hr.  I think it's just a wheel balance.  Stopped at Heidelberg for a couple of nights The semi-ruined castle above the town is worth a look And then into the BlackForest, to Triberg (Cuckoo clock central). Then through the deeper parts of the Black Forest where the roads were deserted and more windy... Was having too much fun and forgot to take photos... Then past Freiburg and across to Alsace. This is a w onderful place, highly recommended with picturesque villages, great food, superb wines, military history, And when you've had enough of all that, head into the hills. The Vosges Mountains.  Much better than the Black Forest.  The roads are smooth, wide, empty and a nice blend of fast and slow.  They are even a pleasure to drive slowly.  Go there.

Heidelberg is a nice town and the Castle is something else hey. I used to spend a lot of time at a small town halfway between Heidelberg and Karlsruhe and was lucky enough to visit a few times.    Damn things can get dull here in Aus...  !

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Unfamiliar road and it was a bit wet, so taking it carefully.

Those roads look fun. She sounds great too, but sounds a bit louder than the stock exhaust. Do you know what exhaust it has?

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Standard headers and cats but as the mufflers were seam-splitting and corroding I chucked them and replaced with with some used, modified ones from Gert @ Carnewel. Slightly louder but not obnoxious.  Only got them as they were cheapest option.  Windows were down in above video - don't like being detached from the surroundings http://www.carnewal.com/products/P96/p96195/Carnewal-GT-Exhaust-Upgrade-System Dangerous website - nice stuff at pretty attractive prices

Beautiful roads and beautiful scenery. Looks like a fantastic place for a road trip. I am looking to do the Nurburgring in 2018, so some of these types of roads look like they will be part of my plan

Time for an update! Last July jumped onto the Amsterdam - Newcastle ferry and went up to Scotland for a quick weeks whip around.  Wanted to find some empty roads.  Have to highly recommend the West Coast north of Ullapool where the roads empty out, stunning scenery and flowing roads.  Didn't get to do all the NC500 (Tourism intiative which is a big loop of the north coast of Scotland where they are targeting the driving enthusiast and seem to be turning a bit of a blind eye to the hasty driver) Somewhere in the highlands, this road typical of those off the main routes West coast at Gairloch Friendly locals Sheldaig Lodge near Gairloch.  Nice spot - carefully selected so wife would rather stay there the day and relax than go driving Applecross pass, hilarious fun going up and hearing the engine echo around the rock faces Jump on the ferry to Skye Scotland never disappoints if you like rain.  Loch Etive Latest tally shows about 10000km last year.  Pretty much problem free except for a failing crank sensor which was making hot starts a problem and a failed coil pack.  Easy driveway fixes.  Also put in RSS engine mounts as the engine was flopping around a bit during quick direction changes.  Interestingly engine runs slightly quieter when temps near zero so I take that as a sign to take oil grade up to 10w-50 next change, which is in line with what Hartech in the UK suggest.  Currently at 187000ish km and going great.  Need new front tyres as front vibrations starts to get noticeable over 200km/h and quite alarming by 220km/h (that's in Germany and on the track if you're wondering).  Very much enjoying driving this thing whenever possible - except in an unexpected snowfall last weekend which was pants-filling stuff with 295 summer tyres and canals on either side of the road!

Thanks so much Avon for posting these snippets of your experiences driving in Europe, I really enjoy them. Great to see you've had so few problems on a relatively high-ish k's car. Goes to show these cars really like to be driven. Makes me feel bolder about taking mine for extended road trips...Alpine Vic and east coast of NSW on the cards in the next few week and Tassie in Feb. It was great to see a recent post on the Rennlist forum of a guy who dyno'd his very high mileage early 996 on it's original unbuttoned engine and it had only lost, if I remember correctly, 4hp. So if we do the correct maintenance it looks like we should have many years ahead experiencing pretty much the full performance of the engine and, fingers crossed, relatively trouble free.

Forgot about this thread.  Car is now Western Australian, shipped it back in late 2017.  All up the transport and compliance was about A$7k for those contemplating the new 25yo import law changes coming soon.  Hopefully we'll crack the 200,000 kms mark this year with school runs, commuting, weekend fun... Had to put the original RHD headlights back on - preferred the ambers so am on the lookout for some RHD ambers. Odd trip down south Perth hills - Peter Brock died here on the curve in the background with the yellow signs - he was coming down the hill towards where the photo was taken. Wife did a track day @ Barbagallo and got down into the 1:18's which isn't too bad for a total beginner.  Interesting to see how small these things are relative to a Commodore Pulled my other toy out of storage and got it running again, which will be the main car focus for 2019 - building up a new engine and trying for over 150hp but not compromising general drive-ability too much. Just putting this up as a postscript to the thread, as there isn't much point in continuing it now the Euro adventures are all over .  However I would recommend the experience as they say - bad decisions make good stories!

The thing I love about this thread is the way you just use your car. I've found in my travels that people in Europe and the Middle East tend to actually use their cars and not just polish them. You actually see performance cars on the road. I'm guessing it's because they are cheaper and more plentiful and the roads and fellow drivers are much better. I know I can sit behind a car in Europe at 200km/h and know he'll move out of the way when he's finished overtaking. He won't 'brake check' or get angry because I'm behind him wanting to go faster. There's practically no road rage overseas