Albrecht Smuten
Nine of Hearts
At the end of 1937 I was a member of The Official Porsche Forum. It was shortly after the release of their low-cost line of cars, the Volkswagen (commonly referred to as the "VW line").
I drove the Volkswagen of course, but both the company and "mature" Porsche drivers were so fond of the VWs, that the Forum wasn't divided and all the drivers were hanging out together happily as equals.
The moderator staff did all kinds of fun things for us. For example, there was the "Forum rear view mirror", designed by the community and made exclusively for it. In the end, it didn't really have "Forum" written on it (not even "Porsche"), because we were afraid that if we'd ever get to take some chick for a ride, we would have to explain to her, that we're just a bunch of nerds, hanging out on the internet, talking about cars. And we really wanted to conceal that even though we were patting each other's back about how great and extraordinarily friendly our community was. I never got one, but it was a really nice custom rear view mirror nonetheless.
Then there was the "Forum car". It had to be top notch Porsche, so it was out of the table for all of us Volkswagen drivers, but we didn't care and just watched the bigger drivers trying to settle on the car's specifics (of course from time to time, there were some VW drivers that would call the others "rich elitist snobs" but you can't really call a Porsche driver "snob", or can you?). Despite all the expectations, they DID settle on those specifics and created a list for 25 (and no more) serious purchasers. Eventually, even more came, but the number of 25 was firm and everything you could do was to be put on the waiting list and hope someone of the original 25 would change his mind.
Some were outraged, some were offended by that outrage, some hate mail was exchanged…
…and then the World War II kicked in and I was disconnected from the internet. I still have the the playing card, hand signed by Ferdinand Porsche himself, and when I feel down, I look at it and remember those happy days when we weren't fighting each other.
I drove the Volkswagen of course, but both the company and "mature" Porsche drivers were so fond of the VWs, that the Forum wasn't divided and all the drivers were hanging out together happily as equals.
The moderator staff did all kinds of fun things for us. For example, there was the "Forum rear view mirror", designed by the community and made exclusively for it. In the end, it didn't really have "Forum" written on it (not even "Porsche"), because we were afraid that if we'd ever get to take some chick for a ride, we would have to explain to her, that we're just a bunch of nerds, hanging out on the internet, talking about cars. And we really wanted to conceal that even though we were patting each other's back about how great and extraordinarily friendly our community was. I never got one, but it was a really nice custom rear view mirror nonetheless.
Then there was the "Forum car". It had to be top notch Porsche, so it was out of the table for all of us Volkswagen drivers, but we didn't care and just watched the bigger drivers trying to settle on the car's specifics (of course from time to time, there were some VW drivers that would call the others "rich elitist snobs" but you can't really call a Porsche driver "snob", or can you?). Despite all the expectations, they DID settle on those specifics and created a list for 25 (and no more) serious purchasers. Eventually, even more came, but the number of 25 was firm and everything you could do was to be put on the waiting list and hope someone of the original 25 would change his mind.
Some were outraged, some were offended by that outrage, some hate mail was exchanged…
…and then the World War II kicked in and I was disconnected from the internet. I still have the the playing card, hand signed by Ferdinand Porsche himself, and when I feel down, I look at it and remember those happy days when we weren't fighting each other.
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