I have been insanely lucky in life. I basically won the wife lottery, marrying the greatest human being I have ever had the privilege of knowing 8 years ago. My career has been tumultuous at times. However, throughout the years as a writer and producer of television for kids, I have been in on the ground floor of some of the most successful shows in history. This is not meant to be boastful, because let's face it, if I really had a clue, I would have gotten into the night time TV business where there is serious money to be made, residuals, show ownership. Don't get me wrong, I've done okay for myself. But, sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd been a producer on FRIENDS instead of MIGHTY MORPHIN' POWER RANGERS. (One day I'll write about my adventures in that bizarro world!) The point is, I've made a comfortable life for myself and my wife and it has given me the ability to share some stories with you that may or may not be of interest. I hope they are. And, I hope you can perhaps save yourself from making the same mistakes I did on the Supercar Highway.
A little background first:
From as far back as I can remember, I have been obsessed with cars. The faster, sportier and more rare the better. It wasn't until I was well into my 40's that I finally decided that I had earned the right to step into the world of the exotic car. For whatever reason, up to that point, I couldn't bring myself to spend the money on what I had been dreaming of my whole life. But, once I said "Screw it", it was on.
Now, let's be clear. There are those who have owned MANY more exotics that I could ever dream of owning. There are guys with obscene amounts of wealth who have collections that number in the hundreds. I usually stick to one or two at a time, as I'm NOT in the obscenely wealthy category (remember, kids TV) and even if I was, I feel like having a bunch of cars sitting in a garage connected to charging devices that never get driven, is a tragedy.
I'm going to try to post once a week and tell my story as it relates to the joys and pitfalls of owning these amazing works of art known as "exotics" and "supercars". Okay, here we go:
The "Seinfeld Porsche"
When I decided to buy my first exotic car, I knew that I wanted to go for something that would not only be fun to drive and cool to own, but would perhaps be an investment that would increase in value down the road. I had heard of folks turning cars over and making hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. This sounded like something I could get into, so why not? This is when I learned my first lesson in owning exotic cars. DON'T COUNT ON A CAR AS AN INVESTMENT. Just buy it and enjoy it, because you will most likely lose money. I'm glad I learned this lesson early because I would have made some really stupid decisions if I hadn't and probably lost even more money than I actually have over the years.
Anyway, when searching for my first purchase, I felt like I needed a little help figuring it all out, so I reasoned that I would seek out an expert to help in the process. I was a huge fan of Spike Feresten's "Car Matchmaker", program where the former Seinfeld writer pairs folks up with cars that he thinks will fit their needs and budget. He always seemed to get it right on the show. I thought to myself, "He'll be my expert". Sounds ridiculous, but living and working in Hollywood, everyone pretty much has a distant connection with everyone else in the business and I realized that I indeed did have a way to get to Spike. The guy who runs my yearly football pool was also a Seinfeld writer and was happy to make the introduction. And, so, I got Spike's e mail and sent off a message. To my great shock, a day later he replied and gave me his personal contact info!
Spike Feresten is an interesting guy. He is super jovial and funny on his show and in TV interviews. I was really looking forward to at speaking with him, joking around, trading clever comedic barbs, impressing him with my rapier wit and car knowledge. Hell maybe I'd even make a new friend. Unfortunately I greatly overestimated both my knowledge of cars and the sharpness of my rapier wit. And, after a few long uncomfortable pauses in our first conversation, it was clear that he didn't really find me that humorous and had no desire to make a new friend. He was clearly doing his actual friend a favor by helping a rookie car investor enter the hobby without getting too taken advantage of.
Spike is a Porsche guy. Big time. He is also a very good friend of Jerry Seinfeld, who has a massive collection of Porsches and other exotics that he keeps in an airplane hangar in Santa Monica CA and a garage in New York. As it turns out, Jerry had just sold one of his 1989 Speedsters to a shop in Northern California and it was about to hit the market after some routine maintenance. The 911 had 11K miles on it and it was in perfect condition. It was absolutely stunning, Spike told me. He also showed me a text from Jerry himself who said the car was "solid". That was enough for me. I booked a flight to No. Cal (Northern California to see the car.
I arrived in Santa Cruz and, after being picked up at the airport by my salesman, was driven to the massive warehouse complex that makes up the CANEPA retail sales department, repair and restoration shop and, wait for it, the Canepa museum. The museum alone was worth the trip as it houses some of the most famous cars in history including a race winning Dale Earnhardt Sr. stock car. But, I was there to buy my own dream ride and after a cursory cruise through their automotive time warp, I was getting anxious to see the Speedster and get behind the wheel.
The car was parked outside and looked brand new. Not a scratch, a ding, a rip or tear to be seen. This was a pure, simple German work of art I was looking at. And, it literally took my breath away. After a brief tour of the 911, I was tossed the keys and told by my sales associate to climb aboard.
A little more background: I'm in my 50s, an aging, grumpy SOB who hates to be uncomfortable or inconveniecned. This spills over into my list demands for the cockpit of any car I buy. Comfort and convenience? Gotta have it. I love a car that absorbs the bumps and glides along in quiet bliss. My daily driver at the time was a Tesla Model S, so you get the idea. I have also had three back surgeries after years of racing dirt bikes, and go immediately into spasm if I spend more than 10 minutes in a less than perfectly designed ergonomic seat, chair or sofa. For some reason, on that day, all of this just flew into some dark corner of my brain and refused to come out, offering zero counterpoint to the decision I had in front of me. What I should have been hearing in my head was, "What the "F" are you doing? Are you freaking serious with this thing? Come on!"
The test drive was short. Very short. A quick buzz up and down the freeway and across a back service road, chatting it up paying zero attention to the fact that the seats were, in fact, less than comfy, the steering incredibly difficult to turn (Power Assist) and the car was nearly impossible for my 6'5" frame, that was and is mostly torso, to reach down to the shift lever every couple of seconds. We pulled back into the dealership and despite the fact that my brain should have been oozing out of my ears, reasons that this car was not for me, I was sitting in that Porsche, smiling like a donkey, happier than I thought I'd ever been in my life. I had to go for it! I DID go for it! Not only did I go for it, but I overpaid by about 50K USD for the opportunity to own this "Seinfeld Porsche" that had been vetted by Bruce Canepa himself (or so they told me.) 50K USD. Quite the premium. Me? Quite the idiot. Regardless, I got on the plane that night and called Spike, over the moon that I was in the club now. I was the proud owner of an expensive somewhat exotic car. YES!
The Porsche arrived on a truck a week later and upon seeing it, that donkey smile immediately returned. I had launched myself into the world of high end automobiles in a really cool way. I had a Porsche that they only made a couple of thousand of. It was a convertible. It was an attention grabber. And, it came with a great story. I was pretty pleased with myself. Right up until my wife exited the house.
"Where are you going to park it", she asked? Hmmm. fair question. I hadn't really considered was the garage situation. Our barely two car structure was already sheltering my Tesla Model S and about 10 years worth of boxes and crap I had no other place to put. And so, I did what any self-respecting exotic car owner would do, I garaged it at an $800 a month Auto Concierge facility in West L.A. So now, not only was I paying nearly an extra grand a month for the car, but if I wanted to drive the thing, I had to call ahead to the garage, drive across town, take the car out, then return it to the concierge and head home. Not the spur of the moment, grab the keys experience I had been picturing. But, I had a freaking Seinfeld Porsche! Who was I to give a shit?
The first drive in my new/old Porsche was awesome. Spike kindly met up with me out in Malibu to see the car and seemed pleased with the advice he had given and the connection he had set up with Canepa. At that point, I was pretty pleased as well. On the drive home I threw thee top down (after half an hour struggling with it) and headed through one of the twisting canyon roads off of the Pacific Coast Highway, just to stretch the 911s legs. It was a blast. There was power enough to put some excitement into the ride, but not enough to elicit the fear of over taxing the suspension and ending up at the bottom of a ravine in flames. At the end of the day I returned the Speedster to the car condo and headed home.
What happened next was where the first sign that the whole thing was going to crap. I woke up the next morning and literally could not get out of bed. The time time I had spent tooling around in my new/old toy had completely torched my back and it took me three days, a bottle of Percocet and two Toradol shots to recover. I should have taken that time on my back to reflect on what had just happened. I mostly watched episodes of Pimp My Ride and enjoyed the Percocet buzz.
The very next weekend, I gave it another shot with the Porsche. I decided to head up the Angeles Crest Highway, a beautiful, winding mountain road that, on that day, couldn't have been more inviting. Perfect weather, no one on the road, all in all, a dream drive. The dream quickly vanished however, when I got home and, dropped to the floor like a 6'5" wax statue, in agony; another crippling back spasm. The old L5 S1 vertebrae combo in my spine was screaming at me to please, never get in that freaking car again. I had to admit, it had a point. Between the shitty seats and the steering that felt like a carny strong man test, this was not going to get any better for me as I got older. So, there it was. Two months in, and it was clear that my first foray into the world of high priced, internally combustable weekend fun was externally combusting in my face. It was time to sell the Seinfeld Porsche.
As it turns out, selling a high priced specialty car is not nearly as simple as buying one, or in this case, leasing one. I had never imagined that I would be trying to get out of the car so soon, so I decided to finance it using a Premium leasing company that specializes in exotic cars and tailors closed end leases to its most discerning of clientele. This meant that there wasn't was much out of pocket at purchase. It also meant that the buy out on the car was around $230,000. This wouldn't have been a problem except for the fact that I had greatly over estimated the "added value", in the current market of both the Seinfeld and the Canepa connections. Not only that, the white hot air-cooled Porsche bubble was finally starting to implode and one of the first casualties was the 1989 Speedster. My particular model seemed to drop off a cliff in value and was now barely worth 200K, regardless of color, mileage and more importantly, provenance. It looked like I was about to lose $50,000 almost over night. At least I had a good job and was making enough to endure the painful kick in the sack I was about to receive. I was just about getting used to that idea of looking like a complete moron, when things really got interesting.
I received a call from the Auto Concierge who had done me the great favor of having someone come out and look at the car to evaluate it for sale. Turns out that when they took paint meter measurements of the car (something that is routine in evaluating a classic car) the variances were all over the place. It seemed like the whole driver's side of the car had received an additional coat of paint at some point in its life. This is when I learned my next hard lesson about investment cars. They are worth far more if they have the original paint job and they sure as hell better measure within a few ticks on the paint meter all the way around the car, or there's been damage. Mine had completely failed this test and what was originally an expensive lesson was quickly turning into a complete shit show. I needed advice. Better call Spike.
Calling Spike turned out to be an awesomely moronic idea. Sure, call the guy who helped you out for free as a favor to his good friend and report to him that you thought you had been ripped off and that the car he'd painstakingly found for you was a turd bucket. What a dumb ass I was that day. What an ungrateful dumb ass. And, Spike took that opportunity to make sure with his truly brilliant rapier wit, sharp as a surgeons scalpel, that that I realized I what an ungrateful dumb ass I was being. In trying to find a way out of this mess I wasn't taking responsibility for my own inexperience and complete lack of research before making a 250K purchase. It was clearly time to take my medicine and deal with it. I was prepared for a complete bloodbath that I would have to soak in for many years to come. I was ready for the can of whoop ass to explode all over me and my stupid 1989 Porsche. Fortunately for me, there were two brothers from the Great White North, who would be my saviors (sort of).
In Ontario California stood a monolithic industrial complex with the simple letters CNC Exotics on the entryway. Go beyond those doors and what was hidden inside was a 40,000 square foot warehouse, home to the most diverse inventory of exotic cars I had ever seen: Mercedes AMG SLS Black Series coupes in every color. Two of the twenty or so Manual Transmission Ferrari 599s. Four different Ferrari 16m Convertibles to choose from, Bugatti Veyrons, McLaren P1s, Lamborghinis from every era since the Countach. And, the list goes on.
The company, once run by their father, was now in the hands of Canadian brothers Clay and Fraser Thom. I had heard these guys were always looking for cars with a story; cars that stood out for one reason or another. From what I was seeing that day in their “showroom”, I figured I had received good intel. I hoped they’d take a liking to the Speedster and maybe want to add it to their eclectic stable. Perhaps the whole "Jerry" of it all would be something they could use to locate another dip shit like myself to overpay for the thing and take down a tidy profit. At least that was my logic at the time. It wasn’t theirs’.
Clay (he’s the deal maker) seemed intrigued by the Speedster. He thought it was interesting and liked the Jerry connection. Unfortunately for me, Clay was way too up on where the market was headed to foolishly offer anything more than what I’d been fearing was the worst-case scenario. But, there was no way he was letting me walk out of there and drive away in that car. Clay is a relationship guy. His customers are his family. Clay quickly told me that CNC had something in their showroom that could be my saving grace. It had just come in (Sound familiar?) hadn't been advertised and was sitting under a cover in the corner of the warehouse. We walked over and Clay Thom dramatically pulled the cover, revealing a 2015 Mercedes SLS Final Edition Convertible. Only 350 were ever made and it was the last of the SLS models. This car was perfect (again, sound familiar?) beautiful rare paint color, interior nicer than my living room, HP in the range of a race spec Lambo. Now, this was a modern-day collectible that I could get behind. It was fast as hell, beyond comfortable and rare as hen’s teeth. (I know. hens don’t EVER have teeth. So to say something is that rare is to say it does not exist. It’s idiotic. But it’s a generally accepted comparison, so there you go.)
Clay insisted that the SLS was a lock to go up in value and he could give me way more for my car in a trade than he could buying it outright. (Of course he could). I decided this was a deal I HAD to make (remember, at the time, I’m still only a couple of months into my new exotic car buying phase). So, I traded the Speedster in for about 25K more than what they would have bought it for, and drove away in my next shiny exotic car. I had gotten out of the Porsche with what I thought was my dignity intact, my bank account fire-damaged instead of incinerated, a comfy new ride and a long list of valuable lessons on which to reflect. Whoever got the Speedster next, God bless them and good luck with that. CUT TO:
Two weeks ago. I get an e mail from a company back east that has started a new investment company, predicated on a whole new business model. They are buying classic cars, selling shares to investors to cover the cost of acquisition, then holding them in storage, eventually splitting the profits from sale among shareholders when the cars increase in value. Not a bad idea in theory. Hard to say how it will perform. Anyway, turns out they had bought a 1989 Seinfeld Porsche from a dealership in Denver CO for the low, low price of 165K (the current market value of a 1989 Speedster). They had, in fact, acquired for their collection my exact car with only 50 more miles on the ODO than when I had traded it in. The reason for this e mail was that these guys were doing their research on the car and I had come up as a previous owner. (There were only three owners. The first guy was dead and they sure as shit didn’t get through to J.S.)
Anyway, these slick talking car dealers masquerading as New York Wall Street Investors had a specific question for me. They wanted to know if I had any info regarding the variance in the paint levels on the drivers’ side of the car. I immediately flashed to my Spike Feresten verbal slice and dice. Once I had recovered and returned to the present, I told them "yes", I was aware. But, that I had no idea how or why the paint read that way on the meter. This was actually true. I tried to figure it out, but never could get an answer that made sense. I called the original owner. He’d never crashed it. Jerry’s "car consiglieri" (Yes, he has one and that's what they call him) claimed Jerry drove it only once and, of course, never hit anything. And, Canepa hadn’t done it. They only had the car for a month. So, what was the answer? Who the hell cares? I only hope whoever winds up with this car many years down the road has strong arms, a sturdy back and just enjoys the shit out of it because in the right hands, it's an awesome little ride.
A COUPLE OF FOOTNOTES:
I know that technically a 1989 Porsche Speedster is in no way a Supercar. But, for me, it was the onramp to the Supercar highway, on which I am still cruising in the best car I have ever owned . That too is for a later blog.
Clay Thom has grown to be someone with whom I truly enjoy doing business. He is a great guy and would lay down his life for a friend. The fact that he is an Anaheim Ducks fan is his only true shortcoming and I consider that a geographic issue rather than a character flaw.
I never talked to Spike again. I was a complete lunatic at the time, so that makes quite a bit of sense. I'm just glad I'm still allowed to participate in the yearly football pool.
THE "SEINFELD PORSCHE"
ASS END OF THE SPEEDSTER
INSIDE THE "SEINFELD PORSCHE"
DEEPER INSIDE THE "SEINFELD PORSCHE"
GOOD READING ON THE PAINT METER
BAD READING ON THE PAINT METER
ORIGINAL AD PHOTO
FRONT END VIEW
PROOF OF PROVENANCE
A MUST HAVE FOR EVERY CLASSIC PORSCHE