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  • Sports Cars

    My CFO’s Porsche Boxster

    My CFO came into the office today and asked if I could drive him over to the dealership to pick up his Lotus Emira – and being as my Hellcat is still in the shop the only option was to ride with him in his Boxster, and then drive his Boxster back to his place.

    Not exactly a hardship.

    Now, granted, his Boxster is dramatically underpowered for what I’m used to – it’s about 200hp compared to my Hellcat’s roughly 800 – but it’s a different kind of car. It’s more about cruising around with the top down and enjoying the moment than ripping a launchpad out of the nearest available tarmac…

    In the long list of cars I’ve owned, one was a white 1972 Porsche 914 2.0 – which had about 100hp but only weighed a smidge over 2000 pounds. It was a very similar beast to the Boxster, and I had a nice wayback moment when driving the Boxster back to his place.

    Anyway, back to the Emira…

    Taking delivery of his Emira with my Hellcat in the background

    He took delivery of his Emira back in August, after waiting like two years for the thing, and last week the first service interval came due. So it’s been in the shop for a week now – not that this phases my CFO much as he has like seven cars.

    The Emira had a slew of firmware updates that needed done, and there’s the typical Lotus issues with sticky reverse gear, electrical foibles, and excessive wind noise… The dealership apparently fixed all of the little things under warranty and did the oil/filter change which was only $250.

    I know readers might be justifiably alarmed at that cost, but it really isn’t that bad considering what it takes to get the car apart to do it… The Emira isn’t your granddad’s F-150, and it takes a solid 30 minutes just to get the underbody panels off and back on again.

    The Hellcat has a similar oil change cost, but for other reasons – such as needing to drain the oil coolers as well as the pan, and the thing holds 7 quarts of oil…

    As for the Hellcat – it’s still in the shop.

    They did determine the issue was one of the fuel pumps and my extended warranty is covering the cost. Right now they’re waiting for a new Hellcat spec fuel pump to show up, and then they need to do the work – so hopefully I’ll have the car back by the end of the week.

  • Recollections

    To say the world has changed a bit since I was younger is a dramatic understatement. And I like to ponder the tides of change on slow, quiet weekends like this one…

    One example of the past versus present is airports.

    Prior to 9-11 you could hang out at the gate with whomever was on the flight, or meet them there when picking them up. So it was normal to arrive, walk up the boarding ramp from the plane, and have someone waiting right there at the gate for you. And tearful goodbyes at the gate were just as common.

    And all of those eateries and whatnot on the other side of security used to have families sharing a meal before jetting off to parts unknown.

    I spent a lot of summers with my grandparents growing up, so I had a lot of solo flight time between Colorado and Ohio when I was little. Being a solo 8-12 year old had some perks – like always getting invited up to the flight deck where the pilot and co-pilot would show off the controls and answer my million-and-one questions. Every flight I also got a pair of gold-plated plastic wings pinned to my lapel from some very nice stewardess, as well as a bag of airline swag.

    Airports were also a lot less stressful back then and I fondly remember the old “Stapleton” airport in Denver, which seemed like a mall with airplanes to me. And plane flight was more of an event back in the day; people were generally all dressed up for the trip and everywhere parents whispered to children to be on their best behavior.

    Notable flights out of Stapleton for me include:

    • 1986 – departure to boot camp in Great Lakes Illinois
    • 1987 – departure to groton sub-base from Christmas leave
    • 1991 – departure to Galveston for work in the gulf
    • 1992 – departure to Istanbul for work off the coast of Mersin

    Stapleton was closed in 1995 where everything moved to DIA.

    I’ve flown out of DIA a handful of times – the most notable being when I left Colorado in 1997 to restart my life in D.C. – but since 2004 I’ve basically sworn off airlines and just drive everywhere… It’s cheaper and less stressful.

  • Car Stuff

    I need to take the Hellcat into the shop this morning to have them look at one of the fuel pumps. The car keeps tossing a P062A error, which is fuel circuit A out of spec, and the pumps Dodge used in 15-18 are notoriously crap – so it’s probably that.

    Fortunately I bought the ultra top-end extended warranty when I bought the car, so I should only be $200 out of pocket… $200 because the work will be out of network.

    See, I bought the car at AutoNation – from their repair shop manager as it was his personal car and he was just selling it through the dealership because it was easy. When I bought it he was very specific about not bringing it to AutoNation for work as the car was beyond their ability… So, I take it to a shop I’ve been using for the last few decades, who also happen to have SRT techs.

    And that’s why it’s $200 instead of free.

    In other car related news – why are BMW drivers like this?

    It’s not even an M-Series or something special – it’s just your bog-standard X3 SUV which simply means you paid too much for the same SUV everyone else drives… New York plates though – that might have something to do with it…

    And we’ve been having some construction going on in the building where my office is – construction must pay well these days…

    Owning something like a Hellcat is kinda spendy – just because you can afford to spend $80,000 on a car doesn’t mean you can afford it…

    For example, I’m over 55, no accidents or anything in the last few decades, have had a long string of performance oriented cars, take yearly offensive/defensive driving courses to keep my skills up to snuff, and have been with my insurance company since Reagan was in office – and I still pay about $300 a month for insurance on the Hellcat.

    Mostly because it’s literally a guided missile…

    Other costs include things like the $300 a piece for the 305 width tires, and you get to replace the rears yearly. It uses expensive fluids – the thing has two full cooling systems filled with $50 / bottle coolant, has about a half mile of oil cooler piping so it holds 7 quarts of high-end Pennzoil synthetic, and the drivetrain lubricants are made with unicorn tears or something… The lube in the LSD is almost $200 for a fill. And the gas milage is pretty bad most of the time; I think I’m averaging about 16MPG, and it’ll only really run right on Shell V-Power Nitro+ which is always about a buck a gallon more expensive than everything else.

    Hell, it uses sixteen $50 spark plugs…

    I’ve been dealing with this sort of thing for so long it doesn’t phase me much, but I wonder how the 20-something drywall guy is making ends meet with that Trackhawk.