When we got to Caribou Coffee in Long Lake for our regular Friday morning java-jolt, Jim Hillegass and I drooled over the remarkable Porsche coupe you see in the above foto.
It was a classic -- of course we could tell that. A serious oldie-but-goodie. The condition was Mint-Plus. Maybe better than new, and as fine as anything I've seen this side of the Barrett-Jackson auctions in Scottsdale.
The rear deck said model '60,' and when Jim and I chatted up the owner inside Caribou, she beamed with understandable pride. The year of manufacture was 1963, she told us.
Why the special nostalgia for me?
It called up memories of my father's 1959 Porsche 1600. When I photographed the Silver Lady in the parking lot it was almost like walking (driving?) in a dream.
Charles N. Hoyt, MD purchased his coupe in New York City in the fall of 1959. On a road trip from Chillicothe, Ohio, back east to see family and friends, the old man couldn't resist stopping at Zumbach Motors on Manhattan's West Side -- just to take a peek, you know. Dr. Chesty fell prey to the siren song of Dr. Ferdinand Porsche. The rest is history.
No one in Ross County had a car anything like Dad's. This baby was painted a robin's egg blue. It sported black (I think) leather upholstery. I can almost remember the smell. The spunky 4-banger rear engine was torquey enough to snap your neck during acceleration. And the precision steering, and absence of any noise coming from where engines are normally found, made the driving experience as eerie as it was exciting.
I had my license back then -- barely -- and strict orders to stay out of The Porsche. I kinda obeyed those orders. But when Dad was out of town, and my friend and co-conspirator Doug McVicker showed up in his Dad's MGA convertible, and challenged me to a race out Greenfield Pike, off we went -- and out the window went the rules.
The contest was a draw. Porsche tied the MGA. Bill McVicker (Doug's dad) never found out about the race. Neither did Dr. Hoyt. We kids dodged a bullet. We were so-so drivers at best; had no business boosting our father's prized sports cars. Thank God we made it back alive.
I'll have to tell the Silver Lady Porsche owner this story next time I see her.
A guy never forgets his first Porsche.
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