Drool Factor

What a crazy last couple of days. Kris and I went to this city for a job interview. And since there was a Mercedes dealership there, I made plans to test drive the SLK.

After my interview, the medical center there had a property realtor show us around the housing in the city; we spent 3 hours looking at houses to get an idea of how much property costs there. And then we started talking about cars, turns out he was a car buff too, despite being in his 60s. When I asked him how I could get to the dealership, he came up with this proposal. His wife's car was at the garage for a tune-up, and it happens to be right beside the Mercedes showroom. She was too busy to pick it up anyway, and he was trying to find a way to bring the car home. So, he suggested I drive the car first to the Mercedes showroom and do my thing, and then I can just drive back to the hotel and park it at our hotel's carpark, which was near his neighbourhood. Sounds crazy enough, as it is, right? I mean, I was a total stranger to this chap.

The craziest thing, was that his wife's car was a farking Porsche 911 Carrera. Bear in mind that until today I had never met this joker before. Thus is the typical midwestern friendliness and trust. I thought he was out of his mind.

And so Kris and I drove up to the Mercedes dealership in the black 911 Turbo, parked right in front of the main entrance, casually walked in and said,

"I'd like to test drive your SLK please." Man, was that a high moment in my life or what?

Given our grand entrance (and the guy I'd exchanged emails with knew I was a physician), no questions were asked, except "Which colour would you like to test drive?"

I felt like I was Brad Pitt. Tom Cruise. Donald Trump (minus the bad hair).

Omigosh omigosh omigosh. I had to force myself to not hyperventilate. I had this stupid grin throughout. With a woody brought on by driving these two supercars.

The only regrets were,

1) It was too cold to drive with the top down on the SLK, though we did play with it a lot. Simply amazing hardtop convertible mechanism,

2) We did not have our camera with us, KNNCCB (after all, we came from the interview).

My verdict, foolhardy perhaps, but I still prefer the SLK. Both were extremely responsive cars, taking off like a rocket with a beautiful v-r-o-o-m. Excellent handling, held on the the wet roads like leech on a fat man, but I thought the noise of the 911 was too much for long-distance driving (although the deep-throated high-RPM rumble was magnificent).

Clearly, one was made to be a racing car, while the other was a luxury sportscar; I preferred the feel of the latter.

Though our trip down here was for business, and the highlight should have been the interview with the very warm and friendly people there (my future colleagues, I suspect. I really liked the practice), my testdrive far surpassed anything else I did down there.

The realtor who lent me his wife's car said we could take it for a spin and have fun if we wanted; because we got lost driving back to the hotel, we ended up driving the Porsche for 45 heavenly, almost-orgasmic minutes.

If I die today, I shall die a happy, happy, happy man. Driving a sportscar with a chick by your side; priceless.

(P/S: no, I will not be making the purchase yet, not until I sign a job contract).