Tonya

10/08/2022

Everyone deserves a second chance. I decided to attend the fall classic car auction near where I live. It's a great opportunity to see what the market is doing, and have a chance to bid on some vintage iron. There's always some not-quite-vintage iron on display as well, but when I see them and do the math it becomes clear that early 2000 model cars are over 20 years old now! That's hard for me to imagine, since I vividly remember when these cars were first introduced. Am I vintage or just old? 

I wasn't having much luck over the two-day auction, my list dwindling one by one as the bids continued to exceed the amounts I was willing to spend. After all, I do need to make a little money at the end of the day. Refurbishing and restoring can be expensive, and no matter how good a car is, it always needs something done to be ready to drive for its next owner to enjoy.

This 2001 Boxster was on my long list for a couple reasons. The first being it was a very clean, low-mile example of a really good sports car. In fact, I would be hard pressed to come up with more car for the money than these first-gen Porsches. When they first came out, I was on the bandwagon of "that's not a real Porsche because its not a 911 and it looks like a girls car". Then I drove one, which caused me to repent and become a believer. Make no mistake, the Boxster takes Porsche back to it's roots as a very light, inexpensive sports car. The 911 has become a bloated version of itself and is an epic supercar, but it's little sibling the Boxster/Cayman is closer in many ways to the family tree than the 911 is now. Anyway, the second reason this car was on my list to bid on is that I know it is my wife's dream car. She has been and is continually my biggest fan and supporter, and I love to watch her experience all of these unique and interesting projects as they pass through the shop. She drives most of them, and though it's not her world, she loves it. 

So, back at the auction, the white on black Boxster rolled across the block. The bidding stalled out just shy of my limit and the reserve, but I held off bidding because there were some other cars I wanted more that were coming up later that day and the next. Reserve was not met, so the Porsche went to Second Chance, where you could try to make a deal to buy it before the close of the auction. I stuck it in my back pocket as a possibility for later, and went back to bidding on more cars.

The next afternoon, having struck out on everything, I began paging back through the cars I had marked for Second Chance buys. I remembered seeing the little white car still sitting in the tent that morning, so  I went back out there to look it over one more time and decided that this car did deserve another chance. I entered a bid for it with the auction house that was only a little higher than it's highest bid had been. A couple hours later, I was informed that the seller had indeed accepted my offer and the car was mine! I was pretty pleased, and settled in to bid on one more car before heading to the office to settle up. After once more ending up on the losing end of a bidding war, I packed up and headed back to collect the one prize I had managed to secure - a 2001 Porsche Boxster with only 70,000 miles on it! Best day at work ever.

1/30/23

You might be able to tell from some of the trip pictures that my wife and I have been having fun with Tonya this last fall. Once the snow started flying, I parked her safely in my shop. On that note, I did accidentally discover that a built in battery tender had been installed by a previous owner! Great for having a good battery when Spring finally arrives. Anyway, we took the happy little Porsche 800 miles south to Memphis, Tennessee over Thanksgiving week. That was a fun trip to visit my brothers and their families. We also took a trip North about 200 miles to visit Becker County, where I grew up. We visited the house I spent the last half of my childhood and stopped at a couple other landmarks I wanted to see. I hadn't been back to some of them for almost 30 years. 

Tonya operated flawlessly, other than a light but persistent harmonic vibration at around 3,100 rpm. Typically, that indicates a worn engine mount, and when I finally got a chance to look at it this month, I discovered the original mount was indeed bad. I swapped in a new mount, and she is good as new. While I was at it, I also replaced the trunk and hood struts. I got tired of the hood coming down on my head unexpectedly. I know. I lack patience for personal physical injury.