Nothing can be as desirable to a car-crazy teen as his dad’s prized sports car. But actually winding up with it illuminates what the car really allowed them to do for and with each other.
It can be easy to feel a tinge of envy when someone you know inherits a vintage Porsche 911. Of course, with inheritance also comes profound loss, the kind that you can only understand if you have experienced something similar. For those that it affects, it can bring focus to life’s priorities – enjoying time with those you care about, growing and learning from your interactions with them, and sharing something important with them before your time is up.
For Chad Person, owning a Porsche 911 was probably inevitable. His father Jerry, an engineer and draftsman, recognized early on that his older son shared his passion for automobiles. In Chad’s early childhood, his father had a Ford Model A that was his weekend hobby car since his high school days. Even his mother Diane shared an appreciation for cars, having once owned a Corvair that she thoroughly enjoyed despite its treacherous reputation.
Jerry had owned and enjoyed other cars over the years, including notably a 1978 Corvette, but he extolled the virtues of the Porsche 911 to Chad early on. A chance encounter with a neighbor in his final year of high school had made a lasting impact. It was 1965, and this neighbor’s generosity in allowing Jerry to drive his then-new Porsche 911 made a huge impression on him. While he loved his Corvette, he had never experienced anything like that Porsche in his life, and knew it was something he had to have.
It wasn’t until June of 1987 that Jerry actually reached that goal, a reward for having achieved a level of career success. It also happened to coincide with his fortieth birthday. This was a special purchase, and he was not about to just go into the dealership and buy one. The family had traveled to Europe before, and so he decided the best way to purchase a new Porsche was to take delivery at the factory in Germany. In doing so, the car was not just a selfish indulgence; instead, the experience was an important event shared with his whole family.
To hear Chad tell it now, he doesn’t remember a lot of the details. But he does remember the first time they saw the Guards Red 911 sitting on the delivery floor. The delivery team had organized the cars by color, and while there was the odd 928 or 944 sitting there, the space consisted mostly of 911s. And there it sat, along with a row of other red Porsches, waiting to be picked up.
Chad absolutely remembers the first time that he sat in it there in Stuttgart, a moment photographed for posterity. He also remembers his father was hesitant to drive it too much the first day because the weather was less than ideal. But once the weather cleared up, they drove their new 911 in the way it was intended, and it was practically transformational for Chad. In that moment he finally understood what it was that his father loved about the Porsche, the very specific sounds and precision, the smell of the car, the way it felt and behaved like nothing else he’d ever been in before.
Once the car arrived stateside, Jerry had no intention of using the Porsche on a regular basis, especially given his native Minneapolis locale. The summer cabin in Wisconsin had a proper garage, and that became the permanent home of the 911. While he always enjoyed taking it out, it’s no surprise that the mileage on the car accumulated very slowly. Jerry believed in quality over quantity, and that was reflected in the way the car was used sparingly. Chad reliably found reasons to ask his dad to use the 911, as teenagers do. He didn’t always get the green light, but when he did, it had a profound effect on him.
Like so many of us that love Porsches, Chad started out with Volkswagens, moving his way from standard Rabbits to GTIs and eventually Audi quattros and a Porsche 996 C4S – for year round Minnesota driving, naturally. After college in the early 1990s, he had a retail business dedicated to aftermarket performance upgrades for mostly European cars. But once he settled down and had a wife and family, he got away from the automotive business and into something more productive.
Eventually, he felt he had to get an aircooled Porsche of his own. Hours of internet searches led him to the white 1983 911 SC you see here. Without realizing it at the time, he wound up buying his car at age 40, the same age his father had been when he got his 911. But unlike his father, he wanted a 911 he could drive guilt-free all summer long, mileage be damned. Conveniently, this car already had 196,000 miles on it when he acquired it in November of 2012. True to his intentions, it now sits at a solid past-the-moon total of 245,000.
While the red ’87 remained bone-stock in its factory-fresh glory, there was no way Chad planned to leave the ’83 as-is. It came equipped with Recaro racing seats, full suspension, and a Wevo shifter, the previous owner having built it for track use. To that Chad added the gold-painted Fuchs alloys with Bridgestone RE-71R track rubber, and a duck tail replacing the whale tail it arrived with. The white ’83 would never be as factory fresh as the ’87, and that was preferred. He committed to creating a 911 where nothing was sacred and it would unquestionably be his.
Meanwhile, Jerry’s red ’87 continued its life as the summer indulgence. But not long after Chad acquired the ’83, Jerry started insisting his son use the red Carrera more often. The few miles that he had put on it were usually with his son and family, and as he aged he found himself driving it less. He briefly toyed with the idea of selling it, but ultimately made it clear to Chad that he believed he should have it and use it. Giving a car like this to someone outside the inner family circle was unthinkable, given how it was woven into their history.
But for all that the ’87 meant to him, Chad found himself having a hard time with the idea of the 911 as “his.” He had driven the car before, and loved it for both what it is as a car and what it meant to the family. But while he could never put enough miles on his own 911, he was reluctant to put too many miles on his father’s pristine example.
Some people have a sense of when they do not have much time left. Some just want to make sure all affairs are in order. Jerry may have been one or both of those. Chad wasn’t sure why his father wanted to get the details of the red 911’s future in place when he did, but yes, the 911 would be his. Ultimately, he would give some valuable watches and a clean Mercedes SL500 to Chad’s younger brother Andy. But as the car nut in the family, the red 911 was particularly special for Chad, and Jerry knew it.
Again and again, Jerry stressed to his son that he should use it, but Chad found himself resistant. It was an instinctual response he could not really put into words. He would say it was a lack of space in his Minneapolis garage, a desire to keep mileage down… but those felt like excuses. He certainly loved driving it, but without his dad along, it left him feeling like something was missing.
Those excuses and minor concerns became unimportant when Jerry fell ill in late summer of 2019. As he became worse and the family began to process the inevitable, Chad found himself grateful that there were no loose ends to tie up. Jerry had, in his methodical and very Minnesota way, made sense of things for when he was gone.
So, when Gerald Person died on April 14th, 2020, the family was not caught off guard and they were able to come together to say goodbye. As much as they could be, the family was at peace with Jerry’s passing. But as we all know, only time reveals what the loss truly means, and Chad is in the early stages.
Now, when Chad looks at his dad’s 911 that has become his, it serves a different purpose. No longer the young kid just looking longingly at a prized possession, he finds himself pondering the proper way to honor his father. “I’m not sure how or when I should use it. Obviously I feel like eventually this goes to my kid, but in what condition? Does it have 30k on it, or 130k? How do I preserve it but also use it like my dad always wanted me to?”
It is easy to get why it all might seem both trivial and a bit overwhelming at the same time. His father loomed large in his life, and now he must take his first steps without the familiar guiding hand.
Wherever this intensely personal journey winds up taking him, the first steps have already been taken. When Chad went to take photos of the two cars together for this piece, he grabbed his friend Andy Dypwick. As they drove around Minneapolis, it became clear the car was possibly about to break 30,000 miles.
For most car people, that would be a milestone you might want to experience. Instead, Andy was driving it, not Chad. It felt right to Chad that his dad’s 911 be driven by a friend he trusted, and that he share the car with the important people who appreciate what it is and what it means.
Jerry would probably say Chad gets it.
Photos by Andrew Dypwick
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