Daily Slideshow: Romancing the Porsche: Stories of Love

An effortless sense of class and style

With Valentine's Day just behind us, we ask the question: What makes us truly love Porsche as much as we do?

The story behind that "first love" will be different for every owner. Some have been passionately fixated on Porsche from day one, while others spare themselves the specific brand loyalty, keeping generally interested in sports cars as a whole. Regardless where it is you're coming from, however, there's absolutely something special about Porsche; you don't even need to have driven one to know it.

We love to speculate about high-tier specs and performance with our sports cars, but the truth is that they are made (or fade) on the basis of their style as far as the public is concerned. Porsche are practically an anomaly in the sense that they've continued to feel cutting-edge without reinventing themselves. By contrast, Corvette has radically changed their flagship design over eight generations and 50 years, while Ford's Mustang has been consciously trying to reintegrate vintage style into their latest models to make them classier. You don't see these self-aware pushes on the part of Porsche. Make of it what you will; it somehow feels natural to them.

>>Join the conversation about the Love Enthusiasts Have for Porsche right here in Rennlist.com.

Meticulous design means a great drive.

Many owners of Porsche will tell you their love for these cars began before they stepped behind the wheel. The experience of actually driving one may be the aspect that really distinguishes Porsche more than anything though. Porsche will famously go to quasi-obsessive lengths to shave down a few pounds here and there, all in the pursuit of the perfect performance. You might not pick up on all the ins and outs using one as your daily driver, but the special care they put in the design can be felt every minute you're driving.

>>Join the conversation about the Love Enthusiasts Have for Porsche right here in Rennlist.com.

Love means acknowledging imperfections.

One of the great things about reading up on other owners' "first Porsche" experiences is that it enables long-time fans to relive the bliss of being newly in love again.

However, love means acknowledging imperfections and taking the bad along in stride with the good. A well-rounded and realistic perspective is what separates love from a casual infatuation, after all. Writing for The Drive, Aaron Brown's reflections on his first car experience with a Porsche 944 really rides home on accepting the difficulties as a necessary part of the courtship. A used 30-year car like the one he bought is going to come with its inevitable demand for repairs and extra work. But what point is there in loving something that doesn't push you to become a better person yourself?

>>Join the conversation about the Love Enthusiasts Have for Porsche right here in Rennlist.com.

A Porsche can be a better teacher than other cars.

One of the things that can help someone on their way towards loving a car is the experience of real personal growth. Porsche cars are renowned for their sophistication and "no handholding" approach to design. In this case, the very thing that makes them so admirable also makes it more challenging.

If you ever wanted to learn your way around an engine or get a feeling or "real driving", a Porsche will inevitably change you as a person. Going on with the example of Porsche fan Aaron Brown with his first 944, the difficulties of Porsche were just the thing he was looking for to build up his competence. The fact alone that he saved up to purchase one in high school is formidable in its own right; the skill-testing manual transmission, expensive parts, and obsessively detailed design make working on a Porsche very tricky-- especially for a first-time owner. On the flipside, however, if you start out at the deep end of the pool, you're not bound to be phased about much else that comes your way in the future.

>>Join the conversation about the Love Enthusiasts Have for Porsche right here in Rennlist.com.

Take it from a superfan.

A love of Porsche can be found across all walks of life. Although people usually aren't able to invest in seeing their Porsche dreams fulfilled to their max, there are a few people out there who have come closer than most. The television actor Patrick Dempsey (from the show Gray's Anatomy) is arguably the best-known Porsche superfan around. While his daily driver is a 911 Targa GTS, he's gathered a fleet of Porsches, which he's all too happy to talk about. In interviews, he cites his love of cars having begun with the toy cars his father used to buy for him. In any case, once that passion centered on Porsche, it's become his life's greatest passion outside of acting. He's even earned some serious cred in the racing cred for his skill and performance on the track. 

>>Join the conversation about the Love Enthusiasts Have for Porsche right here in Rennlist.com.

A love as old as life itself.

The movie director Guillermo de Toro put it best when he said the "point of being over 40 is to fulfill the desires you've been harboring since you were 7." For a lot of Porsche owners, the love of sports cars (and Porsche in particular) can usually be traced back to some childhood ideal of it. No matter what the particulars are, it often happens that owners of Porsche are admiring fans of the cars long before they get the keys and slips to one.

Matchbox cars and children's toys may have inadvertently been one of the best long-term marketers for Porsche they've ever had. It's the quality of the cars themselves that made those dreams real, however, and there are so many details about a Porsche's design that you wouldn't pick up on without a seriously close eye and the depth of knowledge required to appreciate it.

>>Join the conversation about the Love Enthusiasts Have for Porsche right here in Rennlist.com.

Porsche is a gateway to experience.

Positive associations and memories are ultimately what makes true love that life-long state that it is. Just as a Porsche fan might go days just talking about the specs and engineering, they could go just as long telling you about good memories they've had with their car. Whether you're working on a car or taking one along on some adventurous road trip, the joy you feel with a Porsche will feed into the way you feel about Porsche. This bliss is even felt by non-owners too; tourists renting Porsche cars via Passo Tourismo had some glowing things to say about driving them through the Bavarian countryside. If a car can help enable lifelong memories like that, tell us; what's not to love?

>>Join the conversation about the Love Enthusiasts Have for Porsche right here in Rennlist.com.

For help with your maintenance and repair projects, please visit our how-to section in the forum.