(I'll try to keep this as brief as possible)
I had brain surgery last month. Do I have your attention? Excellent. I bought my e36 M3 in '07 following brain surgery in '06 and while it needs a bit of tidying up, it's a very well developed car that's perfectly balanced for non-DD street and track days/time trials or sub-national level solo. A few years later while my '62 Sprite was apart I impulse bought an '89 build date Miata. I doubled the $3800 purchase price with an order to Flyin' Miata, and have enjoyed it a lot.
So, ten years nearly to the day from my first trip to the neurosurgeon it was time for my second round. BTW, as people with brain tumors go I'm about as lucky as one can get. I have the slowest developing type, I discovered it incidentally, many years before it would be symptomatic, had access to the best neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins, and follow-up at NIH. I have a genetic co-deletion that makes my lesion chemosensitive, so it's very treatable. Persistent, but treatable.
So having just had the regrowth dealt with and assured I'll be stuck among the living for a bunch more years, I got back to considering my fleet of aging cars vs. my actual needs.
My going fast is handled by an SCCA P2 race car/trailer/'05 V8 4Runner Sport package. I can get around Summit Point or VIR faster than nearly any production based car, so whatever else I have doesn't need to be stupidly fast.
I have a '62 MkII Sprite that's got a built 1275 motor and good suspension. It's a fun summer evening open car, but it's very primitive. No heat, vent, roll up windows, wipers, phone charging, radio. The top takes 10 minutes to erect.
Daily driving is an '01 BMW 525i manual wagon that's been sorted and set up and it goes and looks great. A forever car.
So that leaves the conundrum. I don't really do any track days anymore in the M3 but it's got literally everything you can do to make it good for that, and it was done in full-addiction mode so it was a lot of $$. Same deal on the Miata; all the best parts and everything done right.
Both cars look nice when they're clean, and run and handle great. But the M3 is 18 years old and the Miata is 26. They're old cars, and a little harsh and primitive.
So I had a thought for how to combine the mission of both and get one car that does everything better. As everything is a compromise, I decided I could give up track days. For instructing I can use the wagon, particularly after I swap in a 3 liter short block.
I considered:
- Late production Z3 M Roadsters w/ the S54B32 motor
- Z4 M Roadsters
- Boxster S
I discussed the matter with my support community of car nerds, and Boxsters rose to the top pretty quickly. So I've spent the past 6 weeks obsessively reading everything I can about them.
On the basis of what the M3 with its pile of roll bar/seats/mounts/harnesses/sets of wheels, the Miata and a KTM motorcycle should fetch, I initially considered '09-'11 987 Boxster S cars in the $40~k range. I get a loan from Penn-Fed, buy a car and unload everything as time permits.
BUT.
A friend who's had ALL THE CARS told me about a local autocrosser with a perfect 2004 Boxster S 550 Spyder limited Edition for sale.
I met him at a gathering of autocross guys last evening, saw and discussed the car. It is the '04 550 Spyder, he bought it new with the intention that it would be a competitive SCCA solo car, so it's optioned appropriately. It's in spectacular condition and has been comprehensively serviced throughout it's life.
It has under 50k miles, and when the IMS bearing failed at ~36k, Porsche bought him a new $23k engine. So the new '05 engine has about 14k miles and has had oil analysis done over its life.
His asking price is high for a 986 Boxster, but it's an exceptional car. I could get a 987 s for just a little more, but to my aesthetic, this is just a cooler car, and the ownership history and that it's "in the family" make me think that it's the one.
Should I just go for it?
thats cool and will probably appreciate more over the years.
