I first bought the car of my childhood dreams at age 43 in 2013, a 1970 Porsche 911T from a specialty consignment dealer named Paul Kramer at AutoKennel in Costa Mesa, CA. He is a great guy who knows almost everything there is to know about classic Porsches, BMWs, and most any other classic car. I would go on to buy two other cars from him, including my second 911 in 2014, a 2007 911 Turbo, which I was told by Paul was first owned by Elon Musk, for what that's worth (#ElonMusk, if you happen to read this, feel free to contact me to confirm or deny!). For another interesting tidbit that I just discovered while picking pictures for this blog post, the third car I bought from Paul was the green 2001 Audi Allroad shown in the picture above, though it would be three years later for Thomas’ first car when he turned 16. I had never noticed it in this picture until now.
It was sometime after those two purchases when I first began to consider that I might be able to buy more than just another Porsche 911, if I ever decided to buy a third. I first voiced my thoughts of buying the first Porsche I ever drove, Doc’s 911, to him before his death and to my brother, Trent, but it was more of a wish than a plan at the time. If memory serves me, Doc called Tim Odell, to whom he had sold the car, just to see if it might be for sale. My hopes were shattered as I listened in and learned that he had, unfortunately, gone through a divorce in the early 2000’s and the car had been sold in the settlement. He didn’t even know who bought it, because it was his ex-wife who closed the deal since the car was still sitting in the garage at the house, and she got that, too. The quest was over before it could even begin, or so I thought.
Then, after it had been out of my mind for quite some time, I received a text from my brother out of the blue, reigniting the dying embers of my dream. He had been able to not only identify the VIN through a document search of Doc’s DMV registration history, but also locate the current owner by searching that VIN for recent registration activity. Amazingly, we discovered that the car was only four hours away from us in Little Rock, AR. I didn’t act immediately; in fact, it was probably more than five years before I really got serious about it, but I finally decided to pursue the possibility of buying her back in August of 2022 when I was scheduled to make a trip to Little Rock to visit friends and introduce them to my fiancé, Elizabeth. While planning the trip, I began to imagine what might happen if I just showed up on the owner’s doorstep and made him an offer, even though it seemed unrealistic.
I called my best friend from college, Kristin, and then talked to her husband, Rob, and began to formulate a plan for once we got there. I had Googled the address listed on the registration and Rob knew someone, who knew someone, who knew the owner based on the location, supposedly a wealthy large-scale farmer. So, one bright, sunny Saturday morning in August, we took off on an adventure. As we traveled the hour or so from their house by car, I was silently ruminating on several versions of my pitch, trying to decide how to initiate an offer to purchase without letting the buyer know the significance of the car to me personally, which would surely result in a higher valuation in his mind. In the end, after hearing my plans to “first practice to deceive,” it was Elizabeth who said, “Just tell the truth and let God handle the rest. It’s the right thing to do.” I knew instantly she was right, and I felt immediate relief. Calmness finally replaced the anxiety that had been eating inside me as I wrestled to pull myself free of the tangled web of lies I had been weaving in my mind.
So, there we were, sitting in the car on a dusty gravel road in front of an industrial barn and small farmhouse, somewhere between the middle of nowhere and several very large grain silos which were looming over us, not knowing if the car was even there.
At this point, I was honestly feeling like the address Trent obtained must have been wrong, or at least represent just the “address of record” and not the actual location of the car. I was afraid it was going to end up being a wild goose chase, but I made myself dial the number, because I knew I would never be able to forgive myself if I didn’t.
It took me a second to realize that “Hello” meant it was my turn to speak, but after a silent pause that probably wasn’t as long as the eternity it seemed, I said the first thing that came to my mind-the truth. “Hi, my name is Tom Siskron. I think you may be in possession of something that is very important to me, and I was just calling to ask if it might be for sale.” After another silent pause for contemplation, possibly lasting even longer than mine just one sentence earlier, Mr. Marshall, with a warm and friendly Southern drawl, responded with, “Well, you have my attention now. What exactly are we talking about?”
I couldn’t have scripted the moment any better if I had tried, and we spent the next thirty minutes talking about the car, the majority of which I spent trying to wrap up the call due to the side-eye looks I kept receiving from my travel companions, indicating boredom, hunger, or maybe both as the shadows drew long across the Arkansas farmland.
Even though I was trying, it was very hard to find a stopping point in the conversation with him, as he just kept asking me more and more questions about the car, the prior owners, and my history with it. He was absolutely enthralled with the fact that I had tracked the car down and cold-called him to try and purchase it. Finally, he ended the call with, “Well, it certainly sounds to me like you are the one who should own this car, not me,” and I felt a sense of relief knowing that it was only a matter of time and money now. He pledged to get his son to clean it up so I could come back and look it over to confirm it was the one, but refused to even entertain a guess at how much he would sell it for. He admitted to me, however, that he didn’t even remember what he had paid for it, and although they started it up and drove it occasionally, for most of the prior 16 years it had been sitting under a tarp in the vary barn we were sitting in front of, and he wanted to make sure it was even in operable condition. Several weeks later, on September 17th, 2022, which would have been by divine coincidence Doc’s 83rd birthday, I returned to the farm to see Meg for the first time in almost 30 years, nervous about what I would find.
If this story were ever adapted to screenplay, now would be the place I would suggest a brief flashback to 1988 and the day I scratched the door jam with the alarm key:
INT. DOC’S GARAGE-DAY
As best friend, Shane, watches with anxious anticipation, Tom cracks open the door of the brown 911 and inserts, then carefully turns a key in the door jam to disable the alarm before opening fully to show off the interior of the beautiful car.
That is how my memory paints the scene from my youth in 1988. As I approached the car nearly a quarter of a century later in 2022 inside the industrial barn where she had spent the prior 16 years mostly untouched, undriven, and unloved, my mind was racing, but at the same time singly focused on one thing. From the outside, freshly washed and polished, she looked exactly like I remembered her from my past, but there was only one way to prove beyond a doubt that this was Meg. I went right to the driver’s door, opened it, knelt down beside her with the light from my cell phone and focused my attention on the undeniable proof of our shared past.
There it was, as obvious as the smile that I could not have kept from my face if my life had depended on it. The scratch that at one time in my life I would have given anything to rewind the clock to prevent, but in this time would take nothing in exchange for, was there. It meant everything to me in that moment, and it still gives me chills to this day to show it to people who are interested in the story, or at least entertain my nostalgic ramblings long enough to allow me to show it to them, whether interested or not.
Over the course of the next few months, I spent several hours restoring Meg to her past glory, part of which included removing a rat’s nest and a dead bird from the engine compartment. I went over her with a fine-toothed comb (and toothbrushes), cleaning every part that could be cleaned, replacing a few worn and degraded parts, replacing the dry-rotted thirty-year-old tires (probably ones Doc had bought based on the pre-2000 date stamp), and returning her, to the best of my ability, to the exact way I remembered her…right down to the smell of the leather and the solid “thud” of the door latch.
Every car has a story. This was a brief recounting of Meg's first 35 years. Thank you for reading. I hope you found something within it that was worth your time. If you ever stop by The Paddock, I would love for you to meet her.
Welcome home, Meg.
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