Something strange is happening; something is not the same. First, the strange part is that this is my first Porsche article in almost eight years. Second, this isn’t the same as any Porsche content I’ve ever put my name on.
If you’re new here, I mostly focus on Japanese cars. A lot of Toyotas, a decent amount of Nissans, and then I sprinkle in the other brands for good measure. Historically, Porsches only came into my purview when they got air-saw treatment and them big old fender flares. And even then, I didn’t dabble much in that world. Porsches always seemed far away, and maybe even a little pedestrian.
Allow me to explain what I mean when I say “pedestrian.” Porsches rarely required a long, drawn-out explanation of what it was. The 911 (or something resembling the 911) has been in production for over 60 years. Over that time, Porsche’s legacy became well-known. Everyone knows a Porsche, and whether they care or not, they can likely identify the iconic silhouette of a 911.
So, there I was – just carrying on my merry way, chasing Chasers and other Japanese cars that look cool sliding around corners, just trying to snap the perfect picture.
However, something happened recently. Something I can’t quite explain. I think I like Porsches now. I really like Porsches. I’ve been trying to put my finger on why, and I can come up with a few singular reasons as to why this happened. Maybe it’s all the GT3 RS memes, or maybe it’s the timeless yet beautiful, almost artistic, aesthetic of the 911 that sucked me in. It could also mean I’m having a midlife crisis, and this is a phase.
What I find alluring about Porsches now brought me to the corner of East 3rd and Quebec St. at 10:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning. On this corner in Vancouver, you’ll find Another Studios, a creative firm and studio. And on this particular Sunday, you could also find Timbertrain Coffee and Flat Six Classics hosting a pop-up event.
Despite what I might pretend to know when performing my duties for SerialPodcastNine, I don’t know a ton about Porsches. So this event was the perfect excuse to expand my horizons and maybe learn just a little bit.
Before I go any further, I want to point out that I shot this with a Canon d90 for two reasons: The Canon has a wider lens than what I have with my Sony, and also, my eight-year-old daughter insisted that she needed the Sony to film a movie with her dolls (who am I to interfere with her creative genius?).
While I may not know Porsches like I do Toyotas, I do love a good latte. Part of what made this event so appealing was I could post up in a studio with my camera, snap some photos and enjoy a delightful vanilla oat latte from Timbertrain. For those who don’t know, Timbertrain consistently appears on lists of coffee shops one must try when visiting Vancouver.
When I finished my coffee, I used the caffeine to work up the courage to ask random people who looked like they were in the know to describe the pair of 912s I had been shooting for 30 minutes or so.
The 912 was the four-cylinder variation to the flat-six 911 from that era that was produced from 1965 through 1969, and then returned again as the 912E for 1975-1976. The 912 has been described as 911-ish, but was meant to be a lower barrier of entry into the Porsche brand.
I was told that the green 912 is pretty much stock but gets driven.
On the other hand, the white 912 was not as stock, which becomes fairly apparent once you glance inside the car and see the harness, the fire extinguisher, and all the other interesting little touches. It was also explained to me that this 912 had its air-cooled flat-four boxer engine “punched-up.” This is maybe the best way to explain modding a boxer engine.
I hung out for a bit, admiring the art on the wall and the well-placed literature. With my latte all finished, I figured it was time to go home and see if my daughter needed help with her cinematic masterpiece.
Truth be told, over the past 16 years of blogging about cars, my energy to create content has dwindled. It often feels like a rinse-and-repeat formula. However, that wasn’t the case with the photos of this event; maybe the fact that I was shooting in an actual studio helped fuel the excitement. Or maybe it was that I was shooting something that I’d never really shot before, or maybe I was just hopped up on espresso. Whatever it was, I’m here for it.
