PORSCHE 911 OWNERSHIP

My Personal Experience In Buying, Owning and Improving Porsche 911’s

I can’t imagine not having these wonderful cars in my life. Truly, they are my therapy, my passion and to me, they are “art that moves me,” both literally and figuratively.

That said, while the enjoyment factor of these cars is immense, the ownership experience can be painful from both a patience standpoint as well as a financial standpoint.

While finding, negotiating, and ultimately buying a Porsche 911 can be a task in and of itself, that’s really only where the journey begins.

Below is a list of solid resources to aid you in your journey of finding, buying, owning, and enjoying a Porsche 911.

PORSCHE CLUB OF AMERICA (PCA)

Candidly, the PCA site has a lot more to offer than I have time to peruse. There’s a LOT of information there about the club, its history and heritage, etc. If that’s your thing, you won’t be disappointed.

My personal favorite section of the PCA site is the classifieds. If I’m honest, I probably check them 3 times a day. A couple of quick observations (and bear in mind these are generalizations and there are always exceptions):

PCA Sellers tend to ask at or slightly above retail for their cars.
I have typically found these cars have been well taken care of and the sellers have a certain visibility in their local club. This translates into sellers generally being transparent and honest.

PCA requires a paid membership to log into their site, communicate with other members, and see member contact info. They offer a full membership as well as what they call a “Test Drive” level membership which is cheaper (and actually a pretty brilliant concept). It allows people who don’t yet own a Porsche but who are looking to buy through the classifieds a way of accessing sellers without having to pay for a full membership.

I used that feature when I bought my first Porsche: a 2009 Porsche 911 C4S in PDK

PELICAN PARTS

Pelican calls itself “The European Auto Parts Leaders” and as such, has some KILLER parts and mods for your Porsche 911 that I’m sure you just can’t live without.

That said, while Pelican has many, many reasons to part with your money and improve your car, their forums are really where it’s at. So much valuable information.

Much like PCA, I find their Porsche 911 classifieds section tends to offer some pretty special offerings. You’ll find track-prepped Porsches, obscure model part-outs, and some cool Outlaws.

If you’re in the market, you’ll want to follow these classifieds closely. Along these lines, if you’re researching your next purchase, their model-dedicated forums can help greatly.

You’ll need to sign up for a free account to see all content, posts, and communicate with other members.

The nice thing about Pelican is that, for the most part, the forums aren’t ad-driven. You’ll obviously see their ads which is totally understandable given they own the site.

RENNLIST

Rennlist is frankly my least favorite site to spend time on for a couple of reasons.

The site is extensively ad-driven and is long overdue for a site redesign. The user experience is lackluster and pages can jam up your device. Very annoying.
Their classifieds section is generally focused on more modern 911’s. Think $100,000+ Porsches. Nothing wrong with that but my focus is mainly air-cooled and that’s generally not their focus.

With those criticisms out of the way, I will say there seems to be a tight-knit core group of users who post regularly on Rennlist. Their forums are solid.

Like the other sites, you’ll need to create an account to access the features you’ll want.