A 4th Example of Why You Shouldn’t Leave Your Porsche with Paul

Ok, so I’m not Paul, but I wanted build on his gripping stories of 911 mishaps so I reutilized his title a bit. He has firmly established that leaving almost any car in his possession is tantamount to ludicrous, so I don’t need to go over that any more. In case you missed the first 3, you can catch them on the Porsche Stories archive page.

My story goes like this…

A friend of mine was out of town and his wife was joining my wife and I at a mutual friends house for dinner. She decided to drive their silver ’83 911 across town and did so in fine fashion. However, upon arrival she noted that the oil light was on and asked the two fellas in charge if they could take a look at it. No Problem. We did.

We went out and sure enough the light was on, so we popped the back and searched for a few minutes for the dip stick. After realizing that it was on the inside of the fill cap and checking the oil, we determined that it was low and decided we would remedy the situation straight away. We announced our departure, hopped in the 911 and headed to the store for a couple quarts. I am not sure of the wisdom of driving a car that is low on oil to get the oil, but that’s what we did. This story isn’t about burning up an engine so you can relax. We’re talking a matter of 5-6 blocks.

My friend Nate drove to the store, without incident, and I was prepared to drive the return trip. We leave the parking lot of the local Fred Meyer and are waiting to go onto the main road that passes out front. At this point people who drive 911s are cringing I am sure.

There was no traffic to speak of, so I decided on the way onto the main street to give it a little gas while making a right hand turn onto the four lane road. I give it a punch (apparently way too much) and it literally felt like the back tires lifted completely off the ground and the back end of the car swung wildly to the left. There was no noise from the tires that I could hear, just the engine winding out.

I had my wits about me enough to counter steer and we never left our lane. I can still see, in my mind, the image of the sidewalk going by and me peering through the wind shield as we went sideways down the road for some distance. Right or wrong, I let off the gas and the car sorted it out, and off we went. Luckily there was no traffic. I am pretty sure it would have been a ticketing offense had an officer of the law been nearby. I was able to complete the journey without further incident. We may have even added the oil when we got home.

Part of the picture in my mind, it now resides there permanently, is of the telephone pole that also whizzed by along with the sidewalk. If I were to add subliminal notes I would say it was calling to the car. I was lucky to keep the two from meeting.

I can’t imagine what anyone who saw the incident was thinking. After all, we were sideways in the middle of the road. There’s a traffic light there now. It probably had something to do with my little Porsche mishap.