"If only you were nearer" Back on track! Apologies...

Argh! I'm all caught up and it's only 1.30am! What am gonna do for the next couple of hours before work?!
Immence thread, it's kept me completely captivated all evening. I need a drink, a wee and some sleep - but I think I might be too excited for the latter. Well done and thank you for sharing. Inspirational.

Baz

What a fantastic thread. I found this through a link on Pistonheads and have read it right through. You certainly know how to tell a story and wow, what a story. Furthest I went for a car was Glasgow and I thought that was an adventure - it did involve flying though - I'm in the South West as well, about 25 miles from Bristol.

Congratulations on getting your dream car. I managed to buy my dream car just under 9 years ago and it was an almost indescribable feeling.

On the subject of Athena: I later found out that my car was actually used by Athena for a poster and after asking on Pistonheads I managed to get hold of a copy of one of the original posters. So now I have the poster mounted on my garage wall with the actual car below it.

I've no doubt your thread charting the resto of your Porsche will be another enthralling read - you will do one won't you?

Looks like a dropsnoot to me...

You're correct (you were correct to begin with )

I think it's just that they are normally referred to as 'slant nose' or 'flat nose' (there is a proper German name like 'flachbau' or something?) and I'm guessing Welshpug thought you might have been referring to the Vauxhall variety? I knew what you meant.

Now that I've recovered I'm looking forward to your thoughts on driving it. (I'm presuming you have driven it here)

Particularly the sensation looking out the screen when traveling at speed.

I remember driving mine that I was constantly struck by the fact that the wings were pretty much the only part of the car I could see ahead.

Looking at the profile shots I'm struck by just how severe a "slant" is on the front end and that there may be nothing visible out front.

Ah, i see the errors of my pronounsciations now...

Bruce,

I think you need to get this on your List to Santa....




teechip.com/pornew

P.

We've established that this car is an 80s icon, my dream poster car and a genuine supercar from its day.

So what else is special about this car? Well, it's got just over 500bhp.

And it's used.



When I say used, I don't mean driven once in a while, I mean used. It's pretty much daily driven apart from when Scott needs to use his massive Toyota Tundra. It gets driven hard....and the environemnt around these parts can be harsh on a car. The access track from the farm to the nearest blacktop is over a mile of course gravel. Many of the roads in this part of Alberta are gravel. As you can see from the photo above, this takes its toll on the car.

But that is of no consequence, this is not a car to be molly coddled and wrapped in cotton wool, to be polished constantly and then gingerly driven to the nearest Cars & Coffee. This car is to be enjoyed and it very much is enjoyed.

Detailers of the world, look away now:



You could stick a stylus from a record player in those swirls and it would play you the story of this car. Garage queen this is not.


We head out onto tarmac and Scott stabs the pedal and within an instant, that horizon line is now somewhere behind us.



The most important bit of kit in this car, after the gauges, is the radar scanner. I'm just way too busy enjoying myself to care if there are cops around, I just want to feel that turbo punch me hard time after time. But Scott is very conscious of how easily this car can land him in trouble and the scanner removes one layer of that concern. It gives him the opportunity to enjoy the car as well without too much worry of smokey being hidden over the next crest.




We've got an hours drive into Calgary, but it soon becomes apparent that this will take us just over half that time.

Probably the best illustration I can give is this sequence of three photos, all taken on 'continuous' which is a like burst mode on a phone. These three shots were taken in approx half a second (I've checked the metadata and they are all within the same second) - gives some idea of the sort of pace we were making...







Holding the camera out of the sunroof at this kind of speed means having to hold onto it damn hard! I'm amazed those photos even came out semi sharp!


This car is an absolute hooligan! So raw, so brutal, so eager to keep building speed. It's so hard to explain. I was expecting something more refined having spent so many years imagining them driving but this has no frills or fancy bits, it really is focused. Aside from the electric windows and sunroof, you'd never really believe you're in something so iconic....it almost feels 'base spec' compared to how you'd imagine but this just goes to show how focused these cars really are and how the celebrity status is a by product rather than the means for their existence.

Spending time with this car really made me appreciate how much of a drivers car they really are and Scott fully understands this. Going fast, as they are supposed to, is far more important than sorting out the stone chips and making it look perfect.

And that, in a nutshell, makes this car pretty much perfect in my eyes.

We hit the main roads in a very short time





....and I realise that we're pretty much in Calgary.




The journey had left me completely filled with adrenaline. And speechless.

This car was amazing!

Absolutely nothing to forgive, in fact it's great to see other stories of cars and car owners.

I have to say I'm quite partial to a Countach ever since I spent some time photographing and drawing one when I was 17 - a 1989 Countach reg F924 OYR owned by a guy just outside of Bristol who also owned quite a collection of other such cars. Such bonkers cars.

I see yours is a 25th Anniversary. Would love to see that in the flesh sometime. Thanks for sharing.