17th Aug 2010, 05:08

The 8th August comment was mine.

This is sort of a follow-up to delve more into my acquisition and use of the car. Cost: $9500; no PPI, no Carfax. Just dove into it. In a way, the way my conversation went with the seller sorta convinced me he is an honest guy -- and for $9500 for an 86 Targa with >143K miles, I was not expecting much.

Surprise! The car's engine is powerful like he said. It started with no smoke like he said, and the car is far from perfect as he said. Even the AC worked at a level he said it would (cooled the cockpit and that was it). There are idiot lights, which came on and off throughout the road trip. The gears were not easy to find as I had expected from reading many comments on the 915. I mashed the gears a couple of times, AND down shifted from second instead of going to third a couple of times. The pedals were resistant, and were off to the right of the well a bit. My wife would have a hard time using this clutch.

The roadtrip was from Vegas to San Diego and back, and I drove it just to see how it will behave. The clutch is a bear, and like I'd previously stated above, the shifting requires a bit of previous standard transmission experience. Third takes a little bit of getting used to; but by the return leg, I had it down pat.

What is amazing about this 25-year old car is how it responds to the gas pedal, and how well it handles. I mostly did 70-75 mph on I-15, but whenever I punched the gas, I was doing 95 with no effort whatsoever on the part of the engine. The road is "transmitted" to the steering wheel and the driver, so that one knew when one hits a bump. It is a TRUE SPORTS CAR, as someone had said earlier.

29th Jan 2011, 10:06

I am the original poster of the review. I have now owned the 911 for 6 years. This car has been extremely reliable. Oil changes, brake fluid flushed etc have all been done. All of which was easy to do. I upgraded to a cat bypass, sports muffler and Steve Wong chip. This car has never let me down. Just a joy to drive.