Howard, as one who imagines himself to think logically I tend to disagree with the suggestion that buying a "man toy" may not be rationalised in some way ... I suspect there might be a professor of economics somewhere who runs such a toy.. (-:

I also suspect there are many who own such machinery and do so on a limited budget, even more so since the dawn of easy money and imaginative car finance which opened up ownership of vehicles to those who may not be able to afford to actually "buy" or own them long term, as witnessed by the number of short term owners for some high end sports cars and forum questions as to possible investment potential if not value retention of the machines over a very few years..?

I would however agree that Porsche is not as special as Ferrari. So why do I not own a Ferrari..? I suspect I could have bought a Ferrari for a similar market value to that which I paid out for my latest Porsche.. I guess that I did not comes down to a few factors, the first of which is reliability, followed by build quality and overall engineering standard of every aspect of air cooled 911`s that improved on both power output and fuel economy year on year for many a year.

Yeah my latest Porsche is not air cooled (sigh) but then there are logical reasons behind me not buying air cooled and buying a more modern Porsche.

My PCGB membership number is three digits long in a membership of thousands these days, which suggests I have been around Porsches and Porsche folk for a while and just as aerotaff experienced there are a whole load of very nice folk in Porsche circles who are more than happy to accept marque enthusiasts at face value... Jeez even when I dropped out of Porsche ownership I would still be invited along on weekend trips with my Morgan, which as you can imagine my old +8 tended to attract more attention than even the cream of the crop of Porsches in the group and on more than one occasion.. (-: . All of which was taken in good humour by the Porsche folks..

I could not begin to compare the cost of my Porsches relative to my +8 over the years, though I am pretty confident in typing that I have spent more on maintenance (including manufacturing defect insurance) in 16 months of my latest Porsche ownership than I have on 20 years of ownership of my old +8.. I am sure that if I owned both cars for another decade or more that the +8 would continue to outperform the Porsche on a cost per mile basis based upon the KISS principle alone..?

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