While researching for a book I am writing I stumbled on an item in the July 1962 issue of Road & Track in their monthly column “People & Places.” Reading it in early 2019 makes clear how much things have changed:
“A report of a survey among Porsche owners made by PORSCHE of America has recently come to our attention. Herewith some scraps of pertinent and impertinent information contained therein: ‘Below 25, we have [sales] prospects but they don’t have the money. Older than 55 they have the money but not the inclination… It is not surprising to learn that the majority of Porsche buyers are married, that they have more children than the other type… these things do happen.”
Well, let’s see, where to begin? This year 1962 was two decades ahead of the first births of the Millennials (or Gen X) who, among the earliest of those individuals, reached the “below 25” years in the first days of Porsche’s first water-cooled 911, the Typ 996. And this survey was four decades ahead of creation of a social network called FaceMash. In 2004 this became FaceBook and several individuals associated with that invention and other internet creations hurried out, as “below 25” to acquire their first Porsche, a Turbo.
Then there is today, where those “older than 55 have the money.” These, the youngest of the baby-boomers, still have the strong inclination and they keep Porsche going today. That survey, done today, might read: Below 18, we have dreamers but they’re not legal buyers without parental assistance. Beyond 75, we find them ordering what they suggest may be ‘their final Porsche’ and notice them beginning to divest of their collections of a dozen or more Porsches.”
Those matters of marriage and more children are far beyond the editorial purview of Road Scholars Magazine.
The rest of this little “item” as print journalists refer to these brief notes, serves as a fine seque and introduction to our March issue.
Our one and only feature is a fine long look backward at what makes and what molds a Porsche enthusiast and collector. In this instance it is RSM’s regular contributor Randy Wells waxing prolific on the subjects of vinyl records, 35mm film and Leica cameras, early Porsche 911s, and even the odd wristwatch or two.
Then, for those of you between 18 and collection-dispersal age, we present results of the less-than exciting sales in Paris during Rétromobile, and the coming Amelia Island auctions with Bonhams, Gooding & Company, and RM Sotheby’s.
If you’re still in the market and going to Florida, we wish you luck. If you’re “de-acquisitioning” at Amelia, we wish you good fortune as well. We’ll be back next month with our own report on the north Florida weekend, and bring you other things to read as well.
Meanwhile, thanks—as always—for reading us.
Randy Leffingwell
Editor Road Scholars Magazine
