Guards Red marshmallow test.

Marshmallows are funny things. They’re pretty delicious on their own, but they become almost magical when roasted over an open fire. As such, because they’re basically just pure sugar, children and other similarly undisciplined types love them, relishing any opportunity to have as many of them as possible (though as you might infer from tone alone, marshmallows aren’t exactly a temptation for your humble author).

Which brings us neatly to Porsches, and specifically the iconic rear-engined 911. Because half a lifetime ago, when I was still an underdeveloped, massively impressionable undergrad student beginning to fall down the performance car rabbit hole, Porsche 911 was the fascination. I still clearly remember the Car and Driver 0-60 times for the then-new Guards Red 997 Turbo… 3.4 seconds! At the time, my manual 2002 Mazda Protege5 ripped off the same feat in nine-point-four seconds… and that didn’t feel slow. I could scarcely even imagine the kind of speed that the fastest Porsches of the day offered, but I was invariably transfixed by the engineering (and expense!) required.

A couple years after that, when I first began writing about cars, perhaps unsurprisingly a Guards Red 911 was the machine of choice… at least on Mars. But Earth was calling too, and being the alien that I am, with my first few paycheques after graduating I began to feel out the 911 market for the first time. At the verrrrry outside edge of my budget was an tiptronic tiptarded 964 Carrera imported from Japan for $25k CAD, which would’ve required some pretty creative deal-making, but after actually getting behind the wheel, the bouncy-short wheelbase, lack of manual transmission engagement, and potential repair bills (rightly) spooked me. So off I went straight into the arms of the faultless 350Z, all for two-thirds the purchase price and 1% the maintenance cost. While that same 964 today is worth $70k USD (~$95k CAD), it’s not hard to see that Young Pete made the correct call at the time.i

Seven or 8 years later still when I’d finally made a few proper shekels, a 911 once again topped the shopping list. At the time, a manual 993 Carrera was $50k USD (also $50k CAD), so I scoped-out this “last of the mohicans” model first. But in spite of my absolute adoration for the design object, the “driver”ii example I test-drove felt viscous, sluggish, a bit cramped, and with floor-mounted pedals that did zero ergonomic favours for my size 12.5 flippers. So water-cooled I ventured next, poking around a manual 996 Carrera 4S for $35k USD (also $35k CAD), but finding it still too lethargic and dense-feeling, not nearly the sprightliness and sportiness I was subconsciously seeking (and found with the mighty godzilla). While today that 993 Carrera is worth ~$80k USD (~$110k CAD) and the same 996 is still $35k USD (though ~$50k CAD),iii at least from behind the wheel on the kinds of roads typical of the American Prairies, neither could cash the cheques their sinuous sheetmetal wrote.

But it was really just a matter of time! After all, I’m nothing if not persistent (and self-disciplined?), which is why this summer I’ll be eating my first marshmallow taking delivery of my first 911, specced in Guards Red no less. It having just rolled off the factory floor in Zuffenhausen, I’m… stoked?iv

The question mark lingers, I suppose, because luxury is inevitably corrupting, so the longer we can abstain (ie. marshmallow testv ourselves), the better, which is to say the less likely we are to degrade our respective moral characters, but also that much less likely to epigenetically degrade the characters of those following in our footsteps. Because yes, trauma can be transmitted to the upside or to the downside, with positive or negative aftershocks in either instance. The two-by-two pretty much draws itself.vi

But this is also a fine line, because if we get too old before indulging, we won’t enjoy the ownership experiences nearly as viscerally. Our lifelong best friends are all from high school and undergrad, after all, which is of course the reason that this impressionable age group makes such useful cannon-fodder in other times and places. But alas, our time and place is one of 11th hour decadence, before the cycle starts anew… so why not grab our fiddles and play a merry tune?

Besides, I’ve had my fun with the sunny 981 GT4 – ripping new PBs at SCR, enjoying ergonomics and control-weights that must be all-time high-watermarks in the history of automotive engineering – so perhaps the right time has finally come. After all, in this era of “inEVitability,” there’s scarce few musical, magical motors still in production, each of which shines disproportionately brighter today amidst the wine-dark sea of turbo-electro similitude. They’re priced absurdly,vii sure, but if one can, mustn’t he? None of us is getting any younger – nor more virileviii – so might as well shoot our shots.

Worst case scenario: I end up on a flame-roasted candy rush, and there are certainly fates worse than that.

  1. Even today I’m not sure I’d spend more than $40k on a manual 964. They don’t really sing or fizz enough to justify more than that. ↩
  2. A “driver” is a classic car that actually stretches its legs regularly, and is mostly differentiated from a “collectible” by mileage. For 993 generation cars, 30,000km would or less would be in the “collectible” category today, while under 10,000 or even under 5,000 would be “ultra-collectible,” but of course those are really for virgin-lusting old men to buy. Young whipper-snappers like those of us reading these pages will happily own a more “experienced” classic car with 60,000km or even 160,000km for a fraction of the price and not be intimidated at the prospect, nor under any illusions as to the category of “investor” hunter we belong to. ↩
  3. This market update basically affirms Jack Baruth’s nearly-decade-old observation that the 996 is “uncollectible“, at least for now… though we must openly admit that the big man has a fairly spotty track record when it comes to investing and macro trends, failing as he has to foresee Bitcoin’s rise, gold supplanting USD as leading global neutral reserve asset,* the rapid technological improvement of Chinese-made cars,** and even the growing sociopolitical relevance of AI; but we must likewise admit that even 996 GT variants are barely catching a bid these days, though they’re aesthetically starting to age pretty well to your humble author’s eye…
    ___ ___
    *Luke G. has the hard-hitting charts as usual:

    With GF giving us the historically contextualised “why” :

    **Cold-weather-friendly Na-ion batteries anyone? CATL will have these sodium packs in production by the end of 2025. They’ll be 35% cheaper than Li-ion and maintain 90+% charge at -30C (compared to 50% for Li-ion).

    ↩

  4. I’m Ron Burgundy? ↩
  5. I’m not sure that I care about the “replicability” of the marshmallow test, or lack thereof. It’s rather a useful euphemism for self-discipline. Y’know, like saying prayers before eating. ↩
  6. Something like this:

    ↩

  7. Well, “absurd” in nominal terms, yes, but in real terms? The 911 has never been cheaper!
    MODEL-YEAR CAR CAD MSRP (base) Avg. CAD gold price (oz) Cost in gold (oz)
    2004 996.2 GT3 $149,900 $546 275 oz
    2007 997.1 GT3 $147,300 $753 196 oz
    2010 997.2 GT3 $138,200 $1,166 119 oz
    2014 991.1 GT3 $148,800 $1,369 109 oz
    2018 991.2 GT3 $163,300 $1,650 99 oz
    2022 992.1 GT3 $204,500 $2,344 87 oz
    2026 992.2 GT3 $277,349 $4,665 59 oz
    2007 997.1 GT3 RS $171,200 $753 227 oz
    2010 997.2 GT3 RS $189,885 $1,287 148 oz
    2016 991.1 GT3 RS $200,700 $1,670 120 oz
    2019 991.2 GT3 RS $213,400 $1,719 124 oz
    2025 992.1 GT3 RS $301,549 $2,730 110 oz

    Of course you’re always welcome to use art or nautilii as your denominator, but is it any wonder that cars in general today feel more electronic and less solid with every passing year? Spreading works! Also, cars are not investments yo. ↩

  8. The current downward trend in virility is much-discussed in tech circles, whether its Elon bemoaning low fertility or Bryan raising alarm about low motility, but what’s still under-discussed is Marshall McLuhan’s observation that the motor-car (or the LLM for that matter) are effectively our sexual prostheses, and we theirs; that the human body is forever conscripted into a machinic reproductive cycle whose long-term aim is not a human telos but diversification and self-optimization for the immanent technosphere. From Understanding Media (1964) :

    ↩

One thought on “Guards Red marshmallow test.”

  1. Bildungs­­biographie. | Contravex: Essais de Pete D. says:
    July 6, 2025 at 7:58 AM

    […] roof of the G550 to take a few blocks down the road to our soon-to-be-former house. Upgrades are in the air in 2025! […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *