Fellow Porsche 911 Carrera 3.0 owner Gavin emails from Australia, where he’s just launched a new Porsche for hire business in Sydney, helping Porsche fans to explore the landscape beyond this great city from a 911 driver’s seat.

Gavin and I have been friends online since 2006, when he was amongst the first to join our impactbumpers.com Porsche forum. His Talbot Yellow C3 Targa is one of my favourites.

“The C3 was my first Porsche.” says Gavin. “I originally went looking for a fun convertible, following a bunch of modern performance sedans that were fast, but not as much fun as I thought they’d be, particularly in normal driving conditions.  Interestingly, I started looking at older Alfa Romeos, but stumbled across a 1975 911 Targa (which was a tub) and happily found that I had to move the seat forward and that my head didn’t stick out above the windscreen.

“Following this, I found a local SC, took it for a drive & fell in love with the sound, smell & overall experience. That was the end of the Italian turn and from there it was just a case of finding the right 911. The Carrera 3.0 ticked all the boxes for me at the time. Aside from SSI heat exchangers and 9″ x 16” Fuchs on the rear, it’s in original spec and has been a thrilling & reliable drive over the years.

“I must be a bit strange because I preferred the classic Porsche 911 Targa to both the Coupe and Cabriolet, particularly in the black and Talbot Yellow combination. Once I got married in the car (cunning move that one) and later discovered how much kids love it, I thought that it would probably be a forever car for me. I’ve had it for 11 years and, while tempted to swap it at times for others, nothing seemed to match the raw feel that the Carrera 3.0 offers. If we had to wrap everything up tomorrow and keep only one car out of our fleet, the C3 would be it.”

Gavin’s ‘Rent a Porsche in Australia‘ fleet is a nice selection – more of that in Part 2.