Another Car Dream

Such a pleasant and satisfying dream last night. Nothing special to it.

A friend had built a car. Although it resembled a circa 1969 Porsche 911S, he’d built that body on a new 991 chassis. Its engine was a turbocharged 4.5 liter flat six. Fat tired but inconspicuous, it was a dainty jewel.

I was buying it from him, Gene, for next to nothing. The only thing that bothered me was its color, bright red. For the rest of the dream, it was a silvery slate blue that reflected everything in its high gleam.

Opening the hood, I checked out the engine bay. He’d done professional work, and the car’s finish was like Porsche had built it. I was extremely pleased.

After acquiring it, I picked up two friends. We were meeting two other friends at a restaurant and going to a concert. The car’s power and grace as I drove stunned me. It was so smooth and controlled, far beyond anything that I’d ever driven. The car’s quiet, unencumbered speed impressed my passengers.

Arriving at the restaurant, we met the other two. I checked out their cars. One was driving a current generation Lexus. The other drove an Infiniti. That pleased me. As I told the friends I’d picked up, there was five of us. We wanted to take one car to make it all easier, and couldn’t go in my new Porsche.

The restaurant was an expensive and charming place sitting by itself in a green field with a parking lot. As it’d just opened for dinner, we were the only customers. We sat down and ordered a light dinner. I had some paperwork from the car. Essentially, the builder had typed up an owner’s manual. I read through it as we ate.

Then, time to go, we headed out to the cars. Plans were made; one car was being left at the restaurant.  I was taking my car home, just up the road. We’d take the third car, the Lexus, to the concert.

Newer Porsches were now in the parking lot. None noticed my gem. I was experimenting with the accelerator, checking its responsiveness. The engine barked and snarled like a racing car, instantly answering the call for power with revs as I trundled it past the other parked cars. At one point, I had to stop to permit another to back out, which I did willingly, feeling cheerful and accommodating toward others.

Then we were exiting, turning left, going up a highway on a hill and around a curve. I quickly raced past others. The tach was redlined at 10,200, very high for a street car. The turbo was indicated on the tach as coming on at 8,200, which was also high. I remembered reading that, and also talking to the builder. He’d made it that high because he didn’t want to be dealing with turbo lag. With four and a half liters, it had power to do anything needed without the turbos.

I wanted to open the turbos and feel it. I was being cautious, though, intimidated by the power that I knew it had. I’d driven turbocharged vehicles and knew that the turbo could catch you out. You had to be aware when you used it.

I also knew that I needed to go home because that’s where the others were expecting me. Then I remembered, shit, I’d left my paperwork back at the restaurant.

Executing a u-turn, I returned to the restaurant. The dining room was now filled. Someone was at the table we’d used but I could see the paperwork. I told the hostess the issue and headed across to the table. By the time I arrived, the paperwork was gone. I addressed the people, a young man and woman there, and asked them about the paperwork. They hadn’t seen it.

Turning around, I realized that I was at the wrong table. The right one was behind me. And there was the paperwork. A businessman had just picked it up and told me that he was just moving it, it was there when he’d arrived. At my request, he handed it to me.

The dream ended.

More Cars in A Dream

A hard rain pelted the road and darkened the sky.

We had three cars. All were Porsches: a 924S, 944, and 944 Turbo.

All were red.

I was driving on a four lane highway with a median strip of dark green grass in the middle, like an Interstate. I drove the 924S. The road was empty except the three Porsches.

This is where the weirdness begins. I was driving the car, but I was looking down on it from about one hundred feet above it. I could see all three cars, and I could see through them. While I was driving, and they were driving, the drivers and I were all talking as though we were in a room together.

I was telling the others that the 924S was more capable than they realized because of its light weight, and that while the original 924 didn’t have much power, the later 924S had power and excellent handling. To demonstrate it, I drove the 924S around the other two Porsches as we went down on a hill, into a sweeping turn, and up a hill.

1983-porsche-944-white-wallpaper-8
Porsche 944

“You’re right,” one other driver said, and the second driver said, “I didn’t realize it had so much power.”

So ended the dream.

I dream often about cars, especially high performance sports cars, and especially Porsches. Porsches captivated me as a child. First, I loved the Jaguar E Type roader, and then the Chevrolet Corvette, and then the Porsche 911S. Porsches became more dominant in racing, with the 908 and 917 variants arising, so I embraced them with greater fervor. Porsches came to mean performance, success, and style.

I’ve twice dreamed about Porsches in 2018 and wrote about the dreams, calling each dream, “The Porsche Dream”. In each, I’d won, or was advancing, and was thrilled. In this one, I was demonstrating a capability that others didn’t know about.

So, good or bad, right or wrong, hopeful or silly, I take this dream as something positive.

 

The Porsche Dream

One of last night’s dream seemed structured like a feature film.

It began with me becoming aware of a contest. I can’t tell you the details of the contest. They were vague and dreamy. But I entered the contest and was selected as one of the winners.

That thrilled me. As a prize, I was going to drive a Porsche 911 Cabrio. It wasn’t the current model, but a car that was part of a collector’s garage. I was happy and excited.

But the dream took a twist. Other people needed help. It wasn’t inconsequential help, but help they needed to survive. Although it meant that I would miss out on my prize, I did what I needed to do to help others. Yes, on the one hand, I regretted that I would miss out on my prize. On the other hand, come on, it’s a silly prize, compared to the larger picture of helping others who are fighting to survive. There wasn’t a question; it’s what needed to be done.

Smiling and happy, they thanked me after I helped them (I literally gave a number of people helping hands to climb out of muddy, swollen rivers.) When it was all over, I waved good-bye to them, satisfied with the result.

Taking another turn in the dream, though, a friend, Kevin, showed up. He said, “I called the guy and told him what you did and why you didn’t get your prize. He admired you, so he came up with another prize for you.” I was presented with the keys to an Arctic blue Porsche 911 Cabrio.

Oh, it was gorgeous. Although it was a cold day, with melting snow all over the place, it was sunny, and the car’s top was down. Kevin and I got into the car. I started it up and drove it carefully through puddles of slush and over patches of snow and ice.

Kevin said, “Come on. What are you doing? My grandma drives faster than this. Open it up.”

But I’d had a plan. I was getting to a place where I could turn and go up a hill onto a mountain road. Right as Kevin finished making his plaintive statements, I downshifted and mashed the throttle. As he was slammed back in his seat, he laughed and said, “Whoa, shit. This is more like it.”

Laughing, with the car’s engine in full song, I accelerated up the mountain road.

That was the dream’s ending.

Sentimentality and Nostalgia Win in a Landslide

Purging tee shirts today, and shorts. I have many of both, old and frayed and worn, that never escape the drawer. They often no longer fit, because I am no longer that size.

But there is a Pink Floyd tee shirt from the Momentary Lapse of Reason tour. What a party that was. What was it, 1988? While stationed in Germany. We partied with Germans and Czechs. Man, hard to believe it was so long ago. I was a different person then. Well, I’ll keep it, even though its collar has partially separated from the shirt’s body, the colors have lost their luster, and the underarms are holed. I’ll keep it.

Also, the tee shirt celebrating Mark Donohue and the 30th anniversary of the Porsche 917-30, which itself was over a decade ago. That’s in good shape but small, a keeper. Also a keeper is the Australian Grand Prix shirt from 2000. My boss, a good friend, bought it for me. I was supposed to accompany her to Australia. We were doing clinic trials for a new medical device for treating chronic total occlusions, but plans were changed at the last minute and I didn’t go. But she remembered how I’d been going on about racing in general, and the Formula 1 race was going on that weekend, turning the place into a carnival, so she bought the tee shirt for me. It’s never been worn. I haven’t seen Laura in ten years but I remember her brightly as one of the best people I ever worked for and a sensational friend.

Michael Schumacher in a Ferrari in the rain is kept. That was his first year with Ferrari after he won two WDC with Bennetton. A red tee shirt from an Iowa writing conference is kept, and another, from a writing conference in Portland, is kept. My LeMans tee shirt is kept. This tee, although drained of life, celebrates Mario Andretti’s final year of Indy car racing. To the keep pile. The Steeler AFC championship shirt from my brother-in-law must be kept.

The tee shirt from the race course formerly called Laguna Seca is also kept. It has the old configuration on it. We ‘won’ passes from the Marlboro people when they were doing a promotion on Moffett NAS. I phrase it as ‘won’ because they gave us the passes after enjoying our company. That was when? Well, Marlboro sponsored Penske, and Al Unser Jr, Emerson Fittipaldi, and Paul Tracy were the driving line-up. 1994, a year before I retired from the USAF, that was the weekend the late, unique Randy stole a golf cart from a track official and drove it around because he was tired of walking. Blue, the tee doesn’t fit, but it’s the thought that counts.

In the end, the thought counts for a lot. The Goodwill pile is much smaller than the pile to return to the drawers. But these shirts, with their smells and rips, shrunken and frayed, are better than photos. I’ll die someday. An estate sale will be held or my wife or relatives will come through and look at these shirts. Those who know me will know what they’re about, and why I kept them.

The rest will just have to wonder.

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑