Porsche Row, a Stagea, and a 17-Year-Old With Better Taste Than Me
Free Donuts, Zero Chill
Ressler Motors throws a Cars & Coffee a couple of times a month, and this round landed at Gallatin Subaru out on Frontage Road. Nine to eleven on a Saturday, free coffee and donuts while they last. They never last. The people who show up to these things at 8:45 aren't there for the donuts. They're there to claim the good end of the lot before the Porsche guys do. They lose every time.
The Beat and Boone already got their own recap, because apparently that's who I am now. But I left a lot of metal on that lot without a word, and some of it deserves better. So this is round two: the cars that didn't make the first cut and absolutely should have.
The Black Speedster
Every lot has one car that makes grown adults stop talking mid-sentence. This one was a black 356 Speedster with red leather, a chopped windscreen, and chrome that caught the light like it had been told to. It sits low enough that you look down at it, and it still wins. It's a 1950s bathtub that makes everything with a wing and a turbo look like it's trying too hard.
It had backup, too. A silver 356 coupe was parked a few rows over, quietly making the case that the hardtop was the grown-up option all along. Two 356s at one Cars & Coffee in Bozeman. I'll take it.
The 911s Brought Friends
Two red 911s. One was a coupe on gold wheels, which is either a crime or the correct answer depending on who you ask. I'm with the correct-answer crowd. The other was a cabriolet with the top already down at nine in the morning in Montana in September. That's commitment. Or a lack of weather apps. Either way, respect.
A Stagea in Bozeman. Somebody Check My Coffee.
Parked at the edge of the lot like it didn't know it was the coolest thing there: a bright blue Nissan Stagea. If you don't know what that is, Nissan took the same RB-engine, Skyline-era family and made a station wagon out of it for the Japanese market. A grocery getter with a GT-R's cousin living under the hood. America never got one. Somebody in the Gallatin Valley went and got one anyway.
Everyone at these meets says they want a fast wagon. Almost nobody actually does it. This person did it the hard way, with an import, and it's blue enough to see from space. Top-three car of the morning, easy.
The Pink Roadster and Its 17-Year-Old Owner
Walk past this one and you'd call it a Miata. Wrong. It's a JDM Mazda Roadster, the Japanese-market version, and it's pink, with a roll bar and a swan-neck wing that means business. The owner is 17. She drove it there herself.
Let's talk about that for a second. At 17 I was driving whatever had four tires and a working heater, and I thought that was a personality. She's 17 and already has an imported roadster, a real wing, and better taste than half the guys standing around the Porsches. Meanwhile I showed up in a car with 63 horsepower and a dog. Car culture is fine, everyone. The kids are alright. Some of them are a lot more alright than we were.
"Seventeen, and she already skipped the part where you buy the boring car first."
— Me, reconsidering my entire twenties
A Ferrari Tribute, a Defender, and a Whale
Then there was the red 250 GTO-style car, with the long nose, covered headlights, and three-slot grille. A real GTO costs more than the dealership it was parked at, so this is a tribute, and an honest one. It was also parked right next to a modern red supercar, like it wanted to remind it who came first.
The yellow Defender showed up with a snorkel, a winch, a roof rack, and a general willingness to leave the pavement. And then a white Lexus LS400, surrounded by people. Thirty years old, probably quieter inside than anything else there, and it'll probably outlive all of us. As a man who drives a big, slow Lexus camera whale to rallies, I felt seen.
The Kids, the Wagons, and the Speedster Win
Two hours in a Subaru dealership parking lot got me two 356s, a JDM wagon that shouldn't exist here, a teenager showing the rest of us how it's done, and a Lexus getting the respect it deserves. Ressler does these a couple of times a month, so the Beat will be back, and so will the dog.
— Aaron, Aaron Goes Fast • aarongoesfast.com
