Denis Reggie Moments

I’ve had a number of very fun trips with my two children over the years both jointly and one-on-one. In early 2005, I was planning a father-son trip to Germany with my then 15 year old son Drew over his spring break from school – Katie’s spring break from her school was still weeks away. Drew and I still reminisce about the time we spent laughing and driving a bit fast (or maybe just a bit faster) on the Autobahn in a Porsche in southern Germany.  Some say that age 15 can be a tough time for relationships with a parent, but our trip brought us heartfelt bonding time… one of those trips we have recounted over and over.

Drew and I envisioned a Porsche with sporty accents inspired by a two tone red-black look we admired in a BMW M3

Like his father, my son Drew was bitten by the sports car obsession. We have spent countless hours together pursuing our passion in one way or another… visiting car dealerships of every brand  in Atlanta for a look or test drive, emailing various articles, photographs and You Tube videos, and, of course, taking our own car out for a top-down drive when the weather was oh so perfect. Our typical preflight routine has been to raid the airport newsstand in search of every automobile magazine in sight to act as our ion board entertainment, trading them back and forth until we’ve read every one and every word. We’ve done this for years. Yes, we particularly have the German car fever and we’re hot about most all of them… from VW to Audi to BMW, and especially Porsche.

I should add that we also have lots of far less expensive passions like movies, music, grilling, and fishing, but cars have always been our true obsession whether driving, waxing, admiring, buying or just dreaming. And, to put this in an even clearer perspective, my fascination with German cars actually began with my prized Volkswagens – a sporty 1982 gray Scirocco and later, a faithful blue Jetta. It is the superb engineering, road feel, driver engagement and remarkable attention to detail that gets the blood going…and that’s the case whether it’s a VW or some pricey brand beyond. Even today, I can’t help but turn my head when I see the very cool Volkswagen CC sedan or their hot GTI – jobs well done! There just something about outstanding design and craftsmanship to admire regardless of sticker price…true quality always rocks.

Our first mission in planning this special trip was to arrange a factory tour of Porsche’s legendary Zuffenhausen facility near Stuttgart. With the help of our friends at Jim Ellis Porsche, we were able to not only get the tour reservations, but a special waiver for Drew who was a couple of years shy of the stated minimum age of 18 for entry into the plant. Having the headquarters of Porsche North America right here in metro Atlanta – and friendships between my dealer and their staff – certainly didn’t hurt.

We could only squeeze 5 days out of his break and my wedding assignment schedule, so we flew directly to Stuttgart on Sunday night. I had always imagined that it might be fun to take European delivery of a new car, but after basic research it was very clear that Porsche is one manufacturer that seemingly discourages the idea.  Other German car makers discount cars to encourage the program and help buyers justify the long trip, but Porsche actually surcharges for factory delivery. For this trip, we decided to just look, not buy. I was able to arrange for a Porsche 911 rental through Avis – a fairly common rental option in Germany – and all was well once we were able to change the GPS language to English. Though we had specified a 6-speed manual, our car was a Tiptronic instead but actually more fun to drive than I would have expected.

We spent a full year waiting for the car but that gave of lots of time to look at other cars to be certain that we had the specs just right. The setting here is in front of Arthur Blank's handsome office building in Buckhead.

Not to miss a moment, we checked in to our hotel, dropped our bags, and headed directly out to the factory for our 1:00 tour appointment unfazed by any jet lag. The spectacular Porsche museum was just a drawing on a sign in 2005, so we toured the modest but still interesting exhibit of vintage racing cars as we awaited our English speaking tour guide.

With our guide – probably in his mid-twenties – and group of 12, we witnessed a precision operation and heard of the history of Dr. Ferdinand Porsche and the philosophy that still defines the iconic brand today (Dr. Porsche was also the original designer of the rear engined VW Beetle, a cousin of today’s Porsche 911.. and since a merger a couple of years back, VW actually owns Porsche.). Station by station, my wide eyed son and I watched as a single technician assembled an entire engine alone. We were surprised that in the vast facility, only two robots were used – one for installing the so-called windscreens, the other for attaching wheels. Virtually every other process in building a 911 is by hand – very impressive indeed. As one might imagine, the Porsche factory was spotless and the eyes of the workers exuded a fervent pride. We were told that working there was coveted as a very prestigious job and that only one in 15 applicants was considered and only after waiting years for any position to even become available.

We are so glad that Porsche went back to the classic round headlights in the 997 model. The funky 996 headlights never looked quite right. Thank you Porsche for listening!

We saw cars in many color combinations as they were driven off the end of the line and parked on a long ramp. We even saw the not-yet-announced Cayman zipping around the factory grounds as it was being final tested without camouflage.  At the end of the tour Drew and I speculated on how our dream Porsche might look – discussing color combinations and options we had seen. We called it “our car” though he did not yet have his full driver’s license. We had our minds on some rich red interior though none was offered in their catalog – we even kidded about having the leather custom dyed (that actually is an option… checkbook, please). We never grew tired of dreaming about this car and how we would be forever aligned to Porsche having been there on the factory floor making such a strong connection. We couldn’t help but feel the energy of the workers and marveled at how one or two lucky senior staffers would test drive the finished cars in the nearby town just to make sure each was perfect. Every 10 or 15 minutes, we’d see another one headed out for its inaugural drive.

Our trip went on to include more factory tours at Mercedes where there were many more robots than humans building cars, BMW in Munich where we saw the beautiful new 3 series car in production, and Ruf, the legendary custom maker of high performance Porsches in the small town of Pfaffenhausen not far from Munich. We still laugh about our stop in that town where we could not find anyone who could speak a word of English. We ended up ordering our lunch with sign language – we looked at the elderly woman behind the counter and just rubbed our stomachs. She smiled and proudly fed us. We still don’t know exactly what we ate, but it was a memorable stop.

After back-to-back all black cars, we were ready to mix it up by introducing the red accents in this Carrera S Cabriolet..

We drove for hours on the Autobahn and loved every mile. We spent one afternoon in the town that Walt Disney must have visited before building Disneyland called Rothenburg ob der Tauber and it was one of the most picturesque places I have ever visited. Every street was like a postcard scene. We flew back via Paris and encountered Ron Howard sitting in the Delta/Air France lounge before our flight. I had met him a couple of times at wedding assignments and it turns out that he was sitting next to us for the flight to Atlanta. I tried to quietly explain to Drew that he was Opie on the Andy Griffith Show which got no response. Drew then looked at him and whispered that he looked a bit like Richie Cunningham from Happy Days, a show he could barely remember. He was right… and I felt old. Actually, Ron and I are within a year of the same age – he’s older, thank you – and I recalled that his wife was from the very small town of Gueydan just 6 miles from my childhood home in Crowley, Louisiana. He was very nice to us, gently soft spoken and seemingly interested in hearing about our trip. He was returning to the U.S. after a production meeting for the movie he was about to start filming – The Da Vinci Code. He had been in Paris to interview Audrey Tautou and had hired her as the female lead. Production was starting in a month and he was headed to Hilton Head to meet his son to play some golf before his life got crazy with this film project.

For Drew and I, it was a trip of a lifetime. A couple of years later, we ordered that dream car, it’s the one shown here. Porsche had introduced the perfect shade of Carrera Red, and we must have made a dozen trips over to our dealer (thanks for your patience, Jose) to scrutinize every option, sometimes checking out from 8 to 10 cars in one visit to see and consider every conceivable combination or unusual option. We never cared for an all red interior – too showy, too much red – but taking a clue from BMW’s interior treatment for their M3, we decided to order a mostly black convertible with specific red accents added at the factory covering the seats, lower dash, door center section, and center armrest, but still leaving much of the interior in black.

It was this BMW M3 design that provided our inspiration to mix the two colors for a sporty, but not over the top Porsche interior.

We wanted the all important top of the dash to be black like the BMW so as not to scream red when viewing the car’s exterior. We placed our order a year in advance and were able to get one of the first cars of that model year. It was everything Drew and I had dreamed of… it was “our car.”  We’ve beamed each and every time we’ve taken it out for a drive… often reminiscing about our very special trip to Germany.

This detail was Drew's request: illuminated Carrera S designation on the aluminum thresholds. A cool look at night.

But with a new 911 on the horizon – available as early as this spring – and knowing that winter is never a good time to try and sell a convertible, we listed our car on the web and it was sold last week after just a few days online. The buyer, as it turns out, is an American living in Stuttgart so the car ships out to Germany this week, returning our dream car to its home – the place where it was conceived… and produced years later.

Drew and I are a little sad to see it go but we’re mostly excited to think about a design for another German machine. We have reserved an early slot for the not-yet-announced 911 model so that’s at least an option for us. My Drew turns 21 this November, and I am really longing for another father-son trip… maybe some nice place for us to do some more dreaming together.