Starting in 2013, I migrated away from an entry run with Lexus and switched to German engineering. What I have learned over the past 7-years is that not all German cars are created equal, and it has taken a number of cars to finally help me understand what really matters in a car. For contextual purposes, I do not drive very much and have not put over 5,000 miles on a car in any year since switching to German cars.
1a) Porsche 997.2 911 Carrera (Current)
About two months before my Audi S5 lease ran out (which I could not wait for btw), I did the natural thing and ordered a Tesla Model 3 Performance - the version of the Model 3 that does 0 - 60 mph in 3.1 seconds. However, Tesla kept pushing the delivery date back and I also noticed something else. Here in Scottsdale, EVERYBODY has a Tesla - it’s beyond ridiculous. My parents have one and driving that car truly is an amazing experience, but I started to question whether it was amazing because of the technology or the actual experience. If I drive 5K miles per year, I want to actually ‘drive’, and as great as a Tesla is, the fact is that 1) it’s far more suited for daily commuters; and, 2) whether self-driving mode or not, the car drives you….you do not drive the car. So, I went from the ‘practicality’ of a Model 3 to the exact opposite end of the spectrum - a Porsche 911. It is about as analog as a car gets these days - you really feel the road, you have to pay attention, and you’re going to spend time at gas stations no matter how much you drive. I looked around for a while and talked to a number of Porsche aficionados, of which there is a diehard following unmatched by any other car - it is only rivaled by BMW M3 fans. In the end, I settled with a 997.2 with the PDK transmission and could not be happier. There are a lot of used Porsches on the market with over 100,000 miles on them and that tells me one thing - people love to drive them…and now I know why. The engines are workhorses and while it will not beat a Corvette or even a Tesla in a straight line 0-60 drag race, the precision that you get when cornering and doing more technical driving (especially when you take off traction control) is unmatched. It’s a RWD 3.6L 6-cylinder ‘Naturally Aspirated’ engine that pushes 345 horsepower - meaning, it’s a real engine - none of this crap with taking a 2.5L, strapping 2 turbochargers on it and pushing it up to 450 hp. Naturally aspirated engines are unfortunately at the end of their time as emissions laws kick in and we start to see more hybrid or pure electric performance. While cars are never investments, I do believe that you should buy something that ‘stores value’ and I believe well maintained Porsche 911s will hold value (much better than a Tesla battery maintaining its charge) over time. If there was ever a time for me to buy a completely unpractical car as a ‘daily driver’, it was now…so I did.
1b) Mercedes Benz C63 AMG Edition 507
Ummm yeah - this car may look practical, but when you drop a naturally aspirated 6.2L V8 engine in it that pushes 507 horsepower, it quickly becomes a beast. I loved this car and selling it is probably my biggest regret - I bought it pre-owned from the owner of a Mercedes Benz dealership in the DFW area and it only had 14,000 miles on it. It was in pristine condition and it had the Edition 507 package on it, which remains very rare. It was completely spec’d out. I loved driving this thing and probably is the one car that I ever felt ‘scared’ when driving. I’m just not sure C-Series sedans were ever meant to have 6.2L V8 engines in them. AMG is the pride of Mercedes Benz performance and this car reminded me of that every time I drove it. I will also say that I probably filled up every time I drove it as it got about 8 - 10 miles per gallon. If I could buy this car back, I would do it in a heartbeat - this 6.2L V8 is a highly-coveted engine - I would not use it as a daily driver, but it is a car that I believe will only go up in value as you cannot get these hand-assembled (and hand-signed btw) engines anymore. The valet drivers at my condo loved parking this car and the sound that it made when you would start it up was one that cannot be replicated by AMG anymore.
2) Audi S4 Sedan Supercharged
Ayrton Senna remains one of my all-time favorite drivers and it was always fascinating to me that a guy that knew car performance at the highest of levels had 2 favorite cars that he drove off the track: 1) the original Honda NSX (which he helped design and calibrate into an absolute legend); and, 2) an Audi S4 Quattro. This Audi S4 was unique in the long line of Audi “S” lineage - it was a 3.0L supercharged V6 engine - Audi had a 2 -3 year model run where they moved from turbochargers to superchargers. Without knowing or getting into the mechanics of it, a supercharger is ‘always-on’ and does not have the ‘lag’ that a turbo experiences as it relies on airflow to kick-in. This car was probably the perfect balance of “practical performance” - it put out 330 horsepower and you could have fun with it without feeling like you were going to kill yourself. Had it not been for ‘stumbling on’ the C63 AMG Edition 507, I likely would have kept this car for a while (which is about 2 - 3 years for me). It was a great looking car, and even had the rims re-finished in a gunmetal gloss - something that I rarely do on a car.
3) Audi S5 Coupe Turbocharged
Yeah - it looked nice. That is about all I have to say about this car. I regret getting this car AND I regret leasing it because I had to wait 3 years to get out of it. By 2018, Audi had gone back to turbochargers (due to the high cost of the supercharger) and while this S5 was tuned up to 354 HP, it was clear real fast to me that Audi was no longer about selling performance; it had become about selling its MMI in-car electronics. The funny thing is that this car also was the first year that Audi enabled Apple CarPlay. So once you connected your iPhone, it basically made all of those fancy in-car entertainment features useless. Yeah, it had the Bang & Olufsen sound system, but it never had the performance of the lower horsepower, yet supercharged S4 sedan. This car is the last Audi I will ever drive because it is stuck somewhere between trying to be a Tesla with none of the performance or electric power. I never had fun driving this car and always felt like it was driving me. I put 16,000 miles on it in 3 years, so I did drive it a bit more than my usual 5,000 miles per year, so I guess it was actually decently practical.
4) Audi A5 Coupe - Prestige Plus (2.0)
Yeah - I don’t even have a picture of this one, but it looked almost exactly like my S5 - same Daytona Gray color too. The problem with this car was it was way underpowered. In 2013, the VW group (Audi included) was using a 2.0L across a number of platforms with some modifications - for example, the A7 (sportback sedan) used a supercharged 2.0L. However, the A5 2.0L was not supercharged and therefore, was underpowered. Audi’s are AWD, which makes them heavy and the coupe versions, which you would think are lighter than the A4 sedans, are actually heavier. So when you combine an underpowered engine with an all-wheel drive sport coupe, you end up with a cool looking slow car. I could not deal with it and traded it in up to the aforementioned S4 with <5,000 miles on it.
Where from here?
I’m not sure what’s next for me - I do think I’ll keep the Porsche, but am very intrigued by the high-performance sport sedan segment again - the BMW M3 F80 sedan is a pretty amazing platform and they are starting to come down in price now that the G80 platform has replaced it. They aren’t cheap, especially one with low miles and the CS package, but would be a nice complement to something that has absolutely no cargo space whatsoever. I’ve been looking and if there’s a good deal to be had, you never know…As far as Tesla’s go, I would wait until the highly-anticipated 4680 battery that Tesla unveiled comes out - analysts don’t expect that battery to be fully commercialized until 2023 or 2024 (which really means 2025 in Tesla time), but it does hold the promise of raising battery capacity and range on a sedan up to 1,000 miles or more. And who knows what else will come out in the EV space between now and then. There is a lot in the pipeline and some exciting stuff from companies not named Tesla. I do think a Plaid version of the Model 3 would be an intriguing proposition.