Diary of a Porsche Owner appears to have beaten me to the idea of a blog about a year of Porsche 996 ownership (in his case, 2001 Carrera2). Hats off to him, who sold his in 2014.
Thanks for the feedback. Good to hear of another owner doing something similar. I've now moved on to a 1980s retro classic, a VW Golf MK2 GTI 16V. Totally different to the Porsche but a huge amount of fine and surprisingly quick especially round corners! Another car, another blog ... http://vw-golf-mk2-gti.blogspot.co.uk/
One major reason that I chose this particular S550 was its having the Burmester High End 3D Surrounded Sound System. That option added $6,400 to the sticker price when this car was new in 2015. I've always been curious what the very best modern OEM car audio systems sound like, and this system has a decent claim to being among that number. (Mercedes has further upgraded this system in the latest S class model years, adding in-seat "exciters" and naturally calling it the Burmester High End 4D Surround Sound System . I am not joking.) What does that $6,400 get you? Well, you go from 13 speakers to 24, jump from 590 watts of combined amplifier power to 1540 watts, and gain a trunk-mounted subwoofer. Presumably, you also get a bunch of bespoke digital signal processing (DSP). The most obvious visible give-away of the upgraded High-End option is the extra tweeters mounted in the front doors. For extra bling factor, these tweeters rotate out of their housings ...
I borrowed a 2021 Volvo XC40 Recharge for a few hours (thanks Rob!), which I used to drive from San Francisco to Sonoma and back. Overall, I really liked it -- comfortable, easy to drive, excellent audio system, and plenty of power (perhaps too much, see below). It also has the advantage of actually fitting in our garage (made possible by power folding wing mirrors), which is something that neither the Tesla Model Y nor the Ford Mach-e can say. Here are some impressions, in no particular order: It feels like a regular car. Some EVs (see, e.g., Tesla) seem committed to making the EV experience feel very different from regular ICE cars, leaning into huge screens and new interface conventions. This Volvo is not like that. It all feels very familiar. There's a screen, but there's also the familiar window buttons, steering wheel buttons (real buttons, not touch/swipe, thank god), buttons for defrost. Nor have they departed from familiar digital dash cluster design (s...
This represents my 15th time attending the Coachella Music and Arts Festival, but only my third time using it as an excuse for an epic road trip on California's backroads (see also 2019 and 2023 ). A relatively late, wet Spring meant that California was surprisingly green, but not yet covered in flowers (as it was in 2023). And mercifully, there were far fewer potholes than there were after the epic rains of 2023. I largely stuck to the roads that I'd discovered on my previous Coachella road trips, which faithfully provided ~1200 miles of the kind of driving that my 2018 Miata was meant for. Day One: SF to Santa Maria I made a few edits to my previous itineraries in this first 300 mile leg of the trip. I began by making my way from SF to Skyline Drive (35), which I followed past Alice's Restaurant all the way to Highway 17. It had been a few years since I'd driven the single lane goat track that is 35 between Highways 9 and 17. It's a lovely set of twisties that...
Thanks for the feedback. Good to hear of another owner doing something similar. I've now moved on to a 1980s retro classic, a VW Golf MK2 GTI 16V. Totally different to the Porsche but a huge amount of fine and surprisingly quick especially round corners! Another car, another blog ... http://vw-golf-mk2-gti.blogspot.co.uk/
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