OK, so Friday after work, John took me out in the Porsche. We pulled out of Glasstech and must have done 0-70-0 in the span of maybe 100 yards. The sheer acceleration was amazing. John chirped the tires on take off… remember now, this car is ALL-WHEEL DRIVE!!! We stopped almost as fast as we started, which is one of the amazing qualities of the 911… incredible brakes!! Every launch was “spirited.” And it seemed like the horsepower was endless… the car just pulled and pulled and pulled!!! Butterfiles, big time butterflies!!

That alone would have been amazing enough, but about 2 miles out into the trip, we pulled into the lot of Cedar Creek Church and switched drivers. 🙂 I pulled out onto Lime City Road and, lo and behold, there was a cop. It sucked!! I followed a cop all the way from The Creek to Eckel Junction road on the way to Ravi’s house. Once I hit Eckel though, I gunned it and finally felt what the car is all about. Just pure power!! It was amazing. I’ve never felt a car pull so hard with so little effort. There was no torque steer, the car was solid and DAMN was it fast!!! The six-speed shifter had short, true little throws and every gear pulled as strong as its predecessor. The ONLY thing about this car I wasn’t impressed with was the clutch. It seemed numb and lacked feedback, it felt the same from the floor all the way back up. Granted, my VW has a GREAT clutch for this kind of feedback, but I expected the Porsche to require a little more force and give a little more feedback when shifting.

So, we stopped at Ravi’s house and showed him the car. He was genuinely in awe!! He and I have been going car shopping since we were able to drive and invariably we’d end up looking at 911’s at some point. The really cool thing was when he sat in it, he fit!! Hmmmm… how about that??

Leaving Ravi’s house is when I really got to air the Carrera 4S out!! I blasted from his driveway back to Eckel Junction and then out onto Eckel towards Perrysburg. I tooled around the back surface roads pulling about 20MPH over the limit… then I got to the expressway. Pulling onto I-475 was effortless… almost a joke how easily the car came up to merging speeds… then once on the e-way, John said “Drop a cog… really let her go.” (John Baxter, for those who don’t know, is a Brit… so hearing him say “Drop a cog” was just awesome!!) So… drop a cog I did (a couple, actually)… down to 3rd and the car just LEPT ahead… I hit 100 in a matter of seconds and was at the Buck Road exit WAY too soon. John said to accellerate up the off-ramp, so I did and the thing just felt glued to the road.

One last full-off burst off from the Glenwood traffic light into the industrial park where Glasstech lives… and that was it… the only thing I didn’t get to experience was a curvy road. The rear-engine design of the car has always made me wonder just how it would feel tossing it through a curvy road… I guess I’ll have to wait to find out until next time… or until I get my own.

One thing I can’t put into words is how amazing this car sounded. The engine is back behind you and, I swear to God, Porsche must tune the engine sounds to the exhaust sounds in perfect intervals or something, because it’s truly a beautiful sound when the whine of the engine mixes with the growl of the exhaust at ANY speed!!! Even just sitting at idle revving the engine, the sounds are musical, powerful, and intoxicating. The acceleration was amazing, but without that sound, it could have just been a fast car… with the music coming from behind your head, it was the most amazing piece of machinery I’ve ever been around… period!!

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