Everyone has their own criteria they will use to determine what they feel is the greatest sports car of all time (G.O.A.T.). Some may not even be able to choose one. It is a tough task, for sure.

I started out liking the sports cars that were prevalent in my neighborhood as a kid, but dreamed mostly of Porsches. Ask anyone who knew me as a teenager, and they would confirm my early lust for the brand. I remember them announcing a new concept, called the “Gruppe B”, which was eventually produced as the 959. I found a picture of the concept car, and had it displayed on my bedroom wall. It was surrounded by many other pictures of various Porsches. This was around the same time that Ferrari had the F40, but I was more drawn to the Porsche. The 959 could have easily been the one I would choose as the G.O.A.T., but as time went on, more intriguing candidates made their debut.

Naturally, my focus shifted to Ferrari once I started selling them. I got to drive so many of them, but the most notable ones were the Enzo, the 288 GTO, the F40, the 599 GTO, the 365 Daytona coupe, and a 458 Speciale. The Speciale is the least valuable mentioned, but is the greatest sports car I have ever driven to date. Any one of these could easily be part of the GOAT conversation, yet my pick for GOAT is not one of the above.

Certainly, many might consider a Lamborghini as their GOAT, yet no Lambo enters the equation for me. Perhaps a Countach can present an argument, simply because it was really the very 1st wild looking exotic, and is timeless. It still would get the same amount of looks today as it did back then. My favorite Lambo would either be a Miura (late ’60s – early ’70s), or the 350 GT from the mid ’60s.

Aston Martin falls into the same category as Lamborghini for me. They have had some notable models throughout their history, but none would enter into the conversation on which sports car is the GOAT.

My choice? None other than McLaren’s almighty F1, produced during the ’90s. To date, I feel the F1 has the strongest link to Formula 1. Yes, even stronger than anything Ferrari has ever produced. The car was none other than the legendary Formula 1 designer, Gordon Murray’s project. He spared no expense in the car’s design and development , wanting to produce a Formula 1 car for road use. I feel that he succeeded, in spades. Heck, it even has a central seating position, just like an F1 car, that would pretty much eliminate any sense of body roll, as sitting dead center should do. Strangely, back in the day, McLaren had a lot of trouble finding homes for the F1s it wanted to produce. I recall reading that an unsold F1 sat in a showroom for years. Funny, because today, they are highly sought after, and command prices over the $10 million mark. It is a car I long to own the most, yet I have never even seen one in person!

Even though I have an extensive history with Ferraris, the Lamborghini Countach is single-handedly responsible for getting me addicted to exotic cars. Back in the day, Alpine car stereos had a poster that featured a picture of a Countach on it (how many of you remember that?), and that was it – I was hooked! It was the wildest looking machine I, and much of the world, had ever laid eyes on. If you were to see one on the road today, it would still draw a massive amount of attention, so imagine what it was like back in the late ’70s into the ’80s.

I wasn’t much into Formula 1 racing at the time, so any link to the racing series did not matter at the time. It was all about the looks, and the level of exoticism. The most comparable car to the Countach back in the day was Ferrari’s 512 Berlinetta Boxer, which was a very cool car in its own right, but really was nowhere close to the Countach in how exotic it looked.

There was a local exotic car dealership in the town I grew up in. One day, I was riding my bicycle by there, and saw them pulling out a black Countach, so naturally, I had to stop to check out what was going on. I had never heard one running, or had seen one in motion, so it was like drawing bees to honey! Once inside, I saw the reason why they were pulling it out, and it was for none other than Pete Rose!

A few years later, once I had my license, I regularly visited exotic car dealerships to take pictures, and hopefully get some brochures. I went to one such dealership that had a Lamborghini Countach parked in the showroom. The salesman saw me salivating over it, and was nice enough to unlock it for me, where I was able to get a picture of me inside of it. I was very much on cloud 9! I couldn’t believe I actually got to sit inside of one.

Fast forward to my career selling Ferraris. We had a good customer of ours whom I ended up becoming good friends with. He was a younger guy, and had bought many Ferraris from me over the years. He had always had a desire to own a Lamborghini, so one day, went ahead and bought a Diablo 6.0, in yellow. Like that car wasn’t flashy enough – throw yellow paint on it, and you essentially have a rolling road block. I don’t think a car could get any more attention than that! Nonetheless, it was the 1st Lamborghini I ever got to drive. Once I got past the level of exoticism it possessed, I could really experience how the car drove. You sat very low to the ground, arms stretched out, and nearly impossible to see out of the sides and rear. It had good power, but it really was a chore to drive. Operating the clutch and gear shift lever required very deliberate action – no smooth and easy here. His brother had owned a couple of Gallardos, both with manual transmissions. First, he had a coupe, and then the convertible. I drove them both. After driving all 3 of these Lamborghinis, I was left with a similar impression, and that was that they all felt like Italian muscle cars. They gave nowhere near the feel you get from a Ferrari.

I still say this to this day – Lamborghinis are for people who don’t know any better. They are for people who want to make the visual statement, where the driving experience is really secondary. They are for people who don’t have the patience to sit on the lengthy waiting lists that always accompanies the newest mid-engine V8 Ferrari (I’ve seen wait times going out 3 years!) Luckily, for those buying Lamborghinis, the general public does not know any better either. A Lamborghini is still as flashy as any Ferrari, and gives of the same level of exoticism, if not more. To the general public, Ferraris and Lamborghinis are one in the same.

I had always found Aston Martins to be interesting cars, but they never really got my blood flowing, at least with respects to their more common models.

Before working for an authorized Aston Martin dealership, my experiences with the brand were almost non-existent. I did drive a 1953 DB2 that had been traded into the Ferrari dealership. It was an interesting car, to say the least, but I had never driven ANY car from that era, so i had nothing to compare it to.

 

We also took in a 1990 V8 Vantage Volante. It was a cool car with an all-aluminum body – very unique for the day. It drove like a pig! It felt heavy, and the brakes were underwhelming. The power was nothing special either. Not very memorable to me. In fact, I actually had to come back and place these last few sentences about it into this story – that’s how memorable it was!

Way back in the day, I remember reading an article about a concept of theirs, called the Bulldog. It was quite futuristic looking, with incredible capabilities, but that car never saw the light of day as a production model. Of course, there were the Astons being driven regularly in James Bond movies, particularly the DB5s from the older movies that really had a ton of character, and looked incredible.

Years afterward, an article came out about their concept model, called a Vanquish. It boasted some incredible performance numbers, and did end up entering production. We once took one in on trade at the Ferrari dealership, but I never did get to drive it. I will say that the sound it made was one of the best I have ever heard in any car.

Once joining an Aston Martin dealership, I got to drive the entire current lineup, which consisted of V8 powered Vantages, the almighty V12 Vantage, the DB9, the current day Vanquish, and the 4-door Rapide.

With the V8 Vantage, you must always keep the price in mind, because you have to constantly remind yourself of what you are getting for the money. Entry price into the Vantage world is about $100,000. No, you aren’t getting stellar performance and handling. Nor are you getting state-of-the-art technology in the cabin. You do get an antiquated single-clutch transmission that is so far behind in today’s world that I would highly recommend the manual transmission.  What you do get for $100,000 is an Aston Martin. You get the looks of one, and you get to tell people that you drive one. It is still regarded as being exotic, even though it is not much more than a Corvette.

The V12 Vantage, on the other hand, is an entirely different beast altogether. Of course, this is reflected in the price, because it gets up to $200k and over. The looks are updated tastefully, but aggressively. And the power! Wow! It is stupid fast. It still has the single clutch transmission, which works a whole lot better with the torque that the V12 delivers. This ties with the Vanquish as my favorite Aston.

The DB9 – what can I say about the DB9? It just doesn’t excite me. Much of it has to do with how long it has been around for. It has okay performance, with a 6-speed automatic transmission. I like the way it looks, but the looks have been around way too long.

The Rapide is an interesting car. It was introduced when I was selling Maserati Quattroportes at the Ferrari dealership. It’s a good looking sedan, but again, has been around way too long, and not as good looking as the Quattroporte.  All of the switchgear is old school – nothing modern at all. It has a 550-bhp V12 mated to an 8-speed automatic, the highlight of the car.

The Vanquish is a beast in a tuxedo. It has the brutal force of the V12 Vantage along with the sound, but is very happy just being a Grand Touring car. I don’t like the looks nearly as much as the Vanquish that preceded it. Coolest part of a Vanquish is the all-carbon-fiber body. It is the only regular production car to have that, yet still weighs close to 4,000lbs. Go figure.

I learned very quickly that even though there is similar pricing, Aston Martin does not hold a candle to a Ferrari. It’s not even a discussion. You have to be a massive fan of British cars and whatever you feel you get because of that.

You can’t get away with keeping designs around for as long as Aston does. In today’s world, 5 years is a lot. Yet they seem to be okay with using decades as time measurements. Same goes for the mechanicals. Their powerplants are still based on the Ford engines they started to utilize when Ford owned them. It’s ridiculous! Their navigation units are pop-up screens on the dashtop that are Garmins! No wonder the showroom was almost always empty, and the phones never rang. You want somewhere quiet to go to? Forget the library – just go to an Aston showroom!

They have now introduced the DB11, which will boast new technologies from their partnership with AMG. That should bring them up to modern times with respects to technology. But the looks. What is up with the floating roof line-look? Are they copying Nissan with the new Maxima?!?! It looks terrible! The car looks like it is wearing a bad toupee!

Aston Martin have a tough road ahead of them. The entire lineup needs a serious updating, and hopefully they have the resources to do so. Their new partnership with AMG is a good thing. I look forward to seeing what comes after the newly introduced DB11.

 

Porsche’s lineup now includes a line of SUVs, starting with the Cayenne, and now with the Macan.

When I first learned that Porsche was going to get into the SUV business, it certainly took me by surprise. i remember cringing! Of course, the Panamera sedan has been introduced as well. Now I’ve driven a Panamera Turbo, and I will tell you it is an incredibly impressive car, performance-wise. However, it might be one of the ugliest sedans I’ve ever seen. Anybody who says his car looks good really needs to get their eyes checked. The back end looks like it belongs on another car entirely. Or not on any car at all. Also, the way Porsche designs their interiors nowadays, I feel that they use way too many buttons. The buttons all look so similar. I can’t see how one would ever get used to all of these buttons easily at all. I would imagine that many owners don’t use 95% of them often enough to get used to them. Nevertheless, Porsche’s foray into the SUV and sedan world have proven to be quite successful as they’ve certainly accounted for a very large portion of Porsche’s annual profit. We certainly see them all over the place, but these vehicles are being bought by people who want something a little bit more sporty than their garden-variety sedan and SUV choices, and of course, carry Porsche emblems on them. They a likely far from being purists.

I find that with Porsche’s current sports car lineup, there’s just far too many variants of every model. If you go on Porsche’s website and try to configure a car, there seems to be a hundred different variations of the 911 that you can configure. It gets a little confusing, and certainly makes the higher level models less special because they look so much like their garden-variety versions. Only when you get to the very special versions of the 911 do they get more differentiated, such as with a GT3 RS and models of that nature.

Just like any manufacturer, Porsche needs to remain highly profitable to stay in business. Unfortunately, when a brand is trying to become more mainstream, they can very easily lose some of the magic that made them special in the 1st place. It’s a fine line – stay special, or become mainstream. Porsche is dangerously close to being mainstream, if they aren’t already.

I’d like to see Porsche start to streamline their line-up a bit. I see no issue with continuing on with the 911 moniker, as it’s such a storied model that really has defined Porsche. I also don’t have a problem with them keeping a similar design theme going forward, but they really should try to differentiate each generation just a tad more. I’d like to be able to look at a 911 and easily identify what era is from, and I don’t find I’m able to do so with the last few generations of the car.

I did get to drive a Boxster S, I forgot what year it was, but found it to be quite a satisfying little car. It’s very nicely packaged, and that’s what gives this car its magic. It doesn’t have an overabundance of power, but the power level is very nicely matched up with its handling and braking capabilities. It’s a fun little car that really reminds one of cars from the past that were more minimalist. There are far too many manufacturers nowadays that just put more powerful engines in their cars and call it a day, not elevating braking and handling levels to go along with the power upgrades. They really are missing the mark. An example of this would be earlier Mercedes AMG variants, or more currently, the Dodge Hellcat.

Minimalist cars that are nicely packaged are cars like a Mazda Miata. It’s a very nicely balanced, and that’s what makes it so much fun. It certainly will not win any power awards, but it’s a very fun car to drive just because of how nicely packaged it is. Another car from my past that would fall into this segment would be something like a Toyota MR2.

I just don’t want to see Porsche lose its way and become a brand that becomes over-diluted and loses its magic.

So even though I spent 12 years selling Ferraris, Porsche was the first exotic brand that really got my juices going!

When I was growing up in the 1980s, the sports cars that I more commonly saw were Camaros, Trans Ams, and Mustangs. I grew up in a middle class neighborhood, so exotic cars were not around very often. I would get pretty excited any time I would ever see a Porsche, even more so a Ferrari or Lamborghini. Heck, we would even get excited at the sighting of a Corvette, as they were fairly rare in our neck of the woods.

The first quasi-exotic car brand that I formed a love relationship with was Porsche. In my neighborhood, we would see one every once in awhile and I became very fond of them. I had a newspaper route as a kid, and I remember one of the houses had a Porsche 924 in the driveway, which was a newer model at the time. Now we all know that the 924 was nothing exceptional in terms of performance, but it was still a cool car to see. Cars can be exotic just by being the only one of its kind in the surrounding neighborhood. The era that I am talking about is predominantly the 1980s. The model of Porsche that really got me going was the almighty 911 Turbo, but I also had quite a fondness for the 928. The 928 was not a Porsche purists’ car, but are still cool none the less. It was fairly futuristic looking, nothing at all like a 911, and unusual to see. I must admit I’ve never gotten to drive a 928, but I’m still curious to this day to do so.

In high school, I had a buddy who ended up buying a used 944. This was the very first Porsche I ever got to drive. The thing I remember about this car was how well it handled. Power was nothing to write home about, although certainly better than the average car. This car’s real strength was the way it handled. In fact, I remember reading in one of the car magazines of the day a road test for the best handling car in the world, and the 944 won.

The 911 Turbo, starting in the late 1970s, to me, was an incredibly muscular looking car. The way it’s rear fenders flared out and the addition of the whale tail just give it a menacing look. Anytime you read about a 911 Turbo, you would always read about how its rear end would exhibit a pendulum effect when one lifted off of the throttle mid-curve. If a driver was not highly skilled, it was not uncommon for the car to go off the road, back end first. I never did get to drive this era of a 911 Turbo, although I did finally get to drive one in 2006. 2006 was the second to last year of the air-cooled motors, and it also had all-wheel-drive – which helped immensely in keeping the back end in check. If I recall correctly, it produced 400 horsepower. That was a ton of power for its day, and I was blown away by how well the car performed. Just getting to drive it was an absolute dream.

One thing I thoroughly enjoyed during my career as a Ferrari salesperson was the fact that so many people valued my opinion on their other brands of cars that they owned. I would often get asked to drive somebody’s car just so they can get my opinion on it. This was a request I don’t think I ever denied. Later on, I got to drive a 911 Turbo S – the first variation that incorporated the PDK dual-clutch transmission. This thing was an absolute rocket ship with its all wheel drive but it felt a little clinical. It didn’t really invoke a whole lot of passion. Also, in this era of Porsches, the turbos were not different enough from the garden-variety non-turbo 911 cosmetically. A lot of this has to do with the “whale tail”. Once they got into active aerodynamics, the tails they produced would pop up at higher speeds. To me, it lost the aggression that the earlier 911 Turbos possessed. It was as if they were trying to minimize it, or conceal it. I felt that they should have kept it as something prominent because it really differentiated the Turbo from the rest of the 911s. The only tails that I find carry on this tradition today would belong to something like a GT3, or the last generation GT2 – something that’s fixed and prominent.

The holy grail for me in the Porsche world was getting to drive a Carrera GT. Sadly, this model has become associated with the death of Paul Walker, as this is what he died in. I will tell you that it’s the most exhilarating Porsche I have ever driven. Having gotten to drive a Ferrari Enzo prior to driving this Carrera GT, I got to feel how the most raw form of a manufacturer’s car could feel. The Carrera GT was Porsche’s Ferrari Enzo. It was just as raw and untamed as the Enzo, but done in a Porsche fashion. The clutch was especially tricky as it was ceramic. I read quite a bit about the clutch and the launch procedure prior to ever getting to drive one, and learned that you were not supposed to give it throttle when trying to take off from a standing start. When one is used to driving a manual transmission, one is very used to doing the exact opposite of that. It was quite difficult for your brain to to allow you to do what you needed to do to not stall the car. I was able to get it going, I think the second try or maybe even the first. I just adhered to what I had read and got off the line rather easily. You could hear all the pebbles kicking up inside the wheel wells. You could hear all the mechanical noises coming out of the engine bay. It was a very raw exotic car driving experience. And the thing was brutally fast! It was the type of car that you had no business carrying a cell phone with you. You do not need any distractions whatsoever in a car like this. Just because one had the money to buy ones didn’t necessarily mean they were qualified to drive it. I cannot tell you how many Ferraris are sold to customers who were really buying them for status symbols rather than for the performance machines that they are. They think they can just hop in the car and drive one on a casual basis while sending their friends text messages or talking on the phone. The reality is that these cars require your full attention. They were far too easy to drive fast. This Carrera GT was such a car. It definitely required your full attention, or you could find yourself in some serious trouble very quickly.

There was a time where Carrera GT’s could be bought for relatively little money considering what level of car they were, and how much they sold for when new. In today’s automotive market though, prices of more special cars have gone through the roof. They really have become unattainable for so many people where not that long ago, they were somewhat attainable. I think the bubble will have to burst at some point because it just can’t keep going in this direction. It’s not sustainable. So having said that, perhaps a Carrera GT may one day be attainable again.