For years, I've resisted the need to own a Porsche. I just felt like it was too much fan-boyism, you have to own a 911 if you're a true enthusiast nonsense. Plus, they're just overpriced. Parts are expensive. Maintenance is expensive. Everything is expensive.
So, all of that works against my basic ethos of cheap cars being fun cars, and cheap cars that are cheap to maintain being even funner cars. A vintage car that not only needs frequent attention but also has extremely high parts costs is a total turn-off to someone like me, and to have the prices be elevated by the people who are comfortable paying too much for anything just makes it a non-starter.
But times are 'a changing, as they say. Specialist shops are getting harder to find, and so are vintage parts. Porsche is one of the few brands that seems committed to keeping its owners and shops stocked up with the needed resources, even if those parts and supplies are sold at staggering prices.
Those of us who are not already money managers need to find other ways to scare up fun money, and vintage cars are a way to do that (takes some work, but it's possible). Porsches hold their values incredibly well, outpacing most of its nearest competitors from the likes of BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
All that is to say, if you want to own a marque that will be supported by the long-term and is likely to appreciate over time, a Porsche is hard to fault. A 911 is out of the question for me, but a 968 isn't. It's slightly more special than a 944, and it's got some 928 magic courtesy of the flip-up headlights. My goal now is to sell the Saab and Peugeot to scare up the cash needed to buy a decent 968, and then it's off to the Porsche store for my track jacket.