On a Saturday evening in El Segundo, Calif., a silver Porsche Carrera pulls up beside me outside of Electric Dreams, maybe one of the best hidden gems in LA depending on who you ask. I normally wouldn’t bat any eyelash at the sight of yet another 911 in LA, but I know this one to belong to one Jonathan Nunez, who’s passion for not only Porsche, but more unsung heroes like Peugot and Alfa Romeo, before the relaunch, I have to respect.
Electric Dreams itself is closed today, but guarded by a swiveling motion-censor camera. Nunez has never been so we peer inside the dark windows anyway. He is amazed by what I have already seen, a small portion of a warehouse building dedicated to rows upon rows of slot cars. The additional inventory is stacked in boxes up to the ceiling in the back of the building. I’ve never seen so many in my life, and it is one of the last of its kind in the US.
“We’ll come back another day,” I say. For an enthusiast this is like El Dorado, and a perfect way to start a conversation with this particular enthusiast. Although I have asked him here to take photos of the 911, Nunez is more than just another “Porsche Guy” living in Southern California. He is a purist, an enthusiast. A guy who was on a pre-med track, turned chemical engineer, who worked on a race car team in college, and now works as an aerospace engineer at one of the most-coveted companies in the world.
His story starts the way many others do, holding the flashlight for his dad in the garage. But as I have seen that doesn’t always take. Many do not make it past the critical flashlight-holding phase into the small projects and responsibility phase, resulting in those brokenhearted dads.
This is not the case with Nunez. “When I was like five years old I was helping my dad lap the valves in his Peugot station wagon engine when he was rebuilding it,” he says.
“We never had too many ‘normal, every day cars’ so as a side effect of that my dad is always fixing cars.”
But the obsession really crystalized in college he confirms. “When I started learning about engineering and working on the race car team - learning the actual engineering behind mechanical stuff - [it] became a whole kind of new world behind working on a car besides fixing a broken things. Then I was hooked for sure.” With this new knowledge he would still go home on breaks and help his dad with his brothers sanding body panels on whatever dad was working on. “You know the usual family project,” he says.
Now, who came before the Porsche, I muse. “My first car was a dodge neon,” he says unabashedly. “It was my grandma’s car, it had like 6,000 miles on it, automatic, black on black. It actually has held up amazingly well. We’ve gotten our money’s worth out of the old thing. We drove it to Ohio [from Florida], it’s never let us down. My brother is still driving it in Detroit.”
His first real car that he bought and loved? A 1999 red Honda Civic Si, you know the one. “That thing is sweet, 8,000 RPM redline,” he says before giving me the short history of the Si. “Since I was a little kid reading car magazines, I just thought it was super cool, I didn't really know much more than that. I was just kind of shopping for cheap cars and I think more by luck than anything I ended up with the Civic Si and I didn’t appreciate at the time how cool of a car that thing was and over the years as I learned more I realized how like special it really is as like the last of the real hardcore Honda’s - it’s like a mini NSX almost. They only made it for two years.”
“And now they’ve all been JDM’d out and turned into Fast and the Furious stuff,” he says regrettably. “Cause that car came out right around the time of Fast and Furious."
That brings us to the topic at hand, or the car in front of us rather, the 2003 Porsche 911 Carrera in Arctic Silver. “We never had any experiences with Porsches until my dad got this $5,000 Carrera from a friend of his [who], abandoned it essentially and we started learning more and more about it as we restored it and it - whet my appetite for Porsches.” He comments that the family started going to Porsche events and getting Porsche magazines. “It kind of snowballs into you’re part of the culture of Porsche ownership. It’s really interesting how Porsche ownership is like - a really tight knit community compared to other cars. I think it’s the biggest car club in the US, the Porsche one.”
After owning the Honda through college, and moving from Florida to California, in 2017 he felt like it was time. “I really really wanted to get a new car, from the Honda, and I was thinking about a Boxter being a good alternative kind of like in a similar class but also can go to the track, it’s faster, it’s like the entry level Porsche, right? And kind of the long story short is - then I realized I could get a cheap 911 for as much as the nice Boxter … so one thing lead to another - I got a cheap 911. I kind of figured if you’re going to go don’t go half way so I went full Porsche.”
Now he gives me the short history of the 996.2, a half generation of the first water-cooled Porsches. On paper it’s supposedly better in every way than the last air-cooled before it, he says.
But unlike the extremely popular and high-value air-cooled Porsches—the 996 is at the bottom of the depreciation curve so they’re affordable but still have the flat-six rear engine, and RWD.
“All the normal 911 stuff,” he says. “Key is on the left.”
“It’s kind of like a good crossover from the really really outdated air-cooled ones but it still keeps that kind of soul but with a lot more modern features.”
He shows me around the interior and you can tell it’s one belonging to a guy who cares, yet uses his car. The black leather still looks great for this almost 20-year-old car. Pretty good for a Craiglist find. “The last owner eventually admitted that he had to sell it so he could afford to renovate the bathroom for his wife, which was a noble gesture,” Nunez laughs. “and he rode away from our sale on a dirt bike.”
Although he is the third owner, he cares like the first.
He is particularly proud of the decals he’s affixed: a Porsche Club of America Los Angeles Region, Porsche Club of America, and of course an Urban Outlaw. Not a shy guy, he’s had many a conversation with Magnus himself at various events around LA.
He also shows off the mesh he’s added to the front grille to prevent leaves etc., from getting in and rusting the AC condenser. He tells me that it’s chicken wire, and right after he did it he found out that there’s a $300 accessory Porsche sells. He laughs, “But it’s basically chicken wire and on my car its literally chicken wire. So every little thing has become its own market. You know?”
I ask him what’s so great about this car. And he tells me it’s the little things. The Carrera has the front end from a turbo, which makes it little different from a normal 996, but it’s Nunez himself that makes this car great. “I think what makes mine special that I like is the modifications I made myself. I would like to say I’ve done more, but I think the most valuable asset of having a Porsche is the sound so I really wanted the car to sound like the race cars I used to hear as a kid at Sebring. So I made a modification to the muffler where you bypass it with a pipe. I welded it in myself and now it has like a nice growl to it. But the sound is definitely unique to mine cause I made the muffler myself. And then just a short shifter and really basic maintenance stuff not really too many modifications.”
The 996 isn’t perfect. Nunez tells me of the issues with this first water-cooled engine, and it looks rather sedated compared to the angrier looking Porsches of today. However, it is still to be taken seriously. On scary moments Nunez says there’s a long list, but mentions one in particular. “I think coming off a highway off ramp when it was wet - I think you know where this is going - I took a right turn and immediately the tail just stepped out almost uncontrollably I had to catch it 45 degrees over and somehow did not spin out, so I have not spun it out for the er, record. But that was definitely the scariest so far.”
After the incident, “I got new rear tires after that and new underwear,” he says matter-of-factly.
But the risk of imminent danger is what he likes about it. “You can take it to the auto cross and push it to its absolute limit. It’s a real sports car that you can take to the limits and it will punish you when you make mistakes. And I really appreciate that about it.” He calls out the online haters who say the 911 street car just understeers. “They just make these cars understeer for people on the street so they don't kill themselves,” he rebuts, “It will understeer and spin out in a second if you’re not on top of it the entire time.” He restates what he likes about the car is that it doesn’t baby him, “Theres no traction control, and the engine is out in the back so you have to be aware of it at all times.”
Nunez enjoys riding out with friends to Angeles Crest or auto-crossing with his roommate, but day-to-day he says it’s just a normal car. It’s benign if you know how to handle it. He keeps it as his daily driver, and manages that by doing most maintenance himself. But he is one of less and less each year who chooses to daily a manual, N/A, two-door sports car. The sentence altogether sounds ridiculous in 2019, unfortunately. He questions what I question, “Why do you even bother with a manual?” With most of the “sporty” popular cars on the market being twin-turbo-4-cylinder-hatchback-sport-ready-crossovers complete with dual sport transmissions that lap faster than the poor manuals. “For me it’s just the connection with the car that you cant get any other way,” he says.
“You’re driving the car. You’re not just a passenger in an appliance,” he continues. “Driving a manual rewards when you get it right and it punishes you when you get it wrong. It’s so satisfying because it’s so hard and you just don't get that from downshifting with an automatic car.”
He leaves me with this and it makes my own crotchety-purist bones tingle.
“It’s not always about going fast, it’s about driving, the driving experience.”