The GTS Chronicles - Getting Two/True Sportscars - Lead-up - 2020-2023

"May"-hem - May 2023

When I originally started reviewing my notes to describe the portion of our GTS Chronicles journey in May of 2023, I figured that there would only be a few items to cover. Boy, was I wrong! The more I researched, the more I discovered - and remembered - how hectic of a month it was. Let's get started.

The first of the big "to-do" items for the month was getting our two existing cars sold (my 2018 BMW M2 and Luke's 2002 Honda S2000). For reasons of tax savings (which I will explain later), this had to be done *before* we paid for our new 718 GTS cars. And the payment for the new cars was going to be due sometime in June. Secondly, we needed to ramp-up our crew's photographic chops, so photo/video training was a big item for this month. Thirdly, doing an in-depth "fit test" of all our luggage/gear was crucial. It would be a big problem if we got to Europe and couldn't fit everything into our two cars. We had to know for sure.

Beyond those three big items, there was a smattering of this and that needed attending to. And, of course, we were anxiously awaiting the build of Luke's Boxster, which was scheduled for the end of the month.

May 4, 2023 - "May the Porsche..."

Although Luke had been keen and happy to see my Cayman get built at the end of March, it inevitably led to a slight feeling of unease with respect to the Boxster. We had seen enough unusual and unforeseen events in the world over the last few years to know that nothing was for certain - and nothing would be more distressing than something like that derailing the production of Luke's Boxster, and likely throw our entire Euro Delivery trip into turmoil. Or what if they got something wrong on the specifics of Luke's Boxster build ... could that be addressed in time? (horror of horrors, what if they accidentally mounted black wheels for our Euro Delivery Trip!!!!). Especially exacerbating all of this was the very long gap between the production of the Cayman and the scheduled production of the Boxster - essentially two full months.

Luke's TYD App finally shows that the Boxster has reached the Change Freeze Point.

Not forty-eight hours before the first of May, however, Luke got his first morsel of relief on the waiting front. His Track-your-dream app now showed "You have reached the Change Freeze Point". This was something that should have updated months ago. It represented "movement", and gave Luke a bit of relief.

This wasn't really a true update to his Boxster's order status, however, and was simply a sort of catch-up to what should have been quite a long time ago. On top of that, Luke had fallen a touch behind on getting his own existing sportscar - a beloved 2002 Red honda S2000 - up for sale. Accordingly, Luke's mind is not completely at ease: From: Luke Ward - May 1, 2023, 2:02 PM "Good stuff. I still bear lots of inner turmoil about car not being built, or not being built properly, and once the S2000 is sold and the cheque is written to Porsche I will feel a weight off my shoulders for sure. There's no change my status yet still V 215"

To lift Luke's spirits a bit and also to put up a bit of new GTS Chronicles Instagram content, I posted a little "May-the-fourth / May-the-force" update to the instagram feed, focusing on Luke's Boxster:

You can view the post on Instagram here. Or see it here inline in this webpage below:

The GTS Chronicles IG Post 070 - "May the fourth (be with Luke)"

May 6, 2023 - Resurrected Drone shakedown

Remember my resurrected drone ... the one that spent time at the bottom of the Ottawa River and which I had painstakingly brought back to working order? Well, it still needed a proper shakedown test, to see if it was truly ready to be used in actual service of the GTS Chronicles. It was still going to be the backup unit, to supplement the replacement one that I had purchased after the sailing disaster, but if it a further unfortunate incident meant it had to be pressed into service, I wanted to be sure it was up to the task.

I went to a large empty parking lot on a nice sunny May morning and put the drone through its paces. Connection, lock, takeoff, hover, maneuvering ... all fine. Camera feed good.

I flew around for a bit, trying different kinds of things - wide views, flying close in near the ground, etc. I noticed that the focus in the display was not always perfectly crisp. Sometimes it was, but then other times, it drifted towards slightly blurry (confirmed looking at the footage closely afterwards). It appeared that, although my replacement of the lens and autofocus modules was successful, something wasn't quite 100% perfect. I switched to manual focus mode, and happily, the camera always responded properly to the manual focus inputs. And with the focus-peaking bands available as a feedback mechanism in manual mode, I was always able to ensure that I had proper focus before shooting a scene. I'd have to be a bit more careful before filming my shots with this drone, but overall, I considered it certified for backup drone operations. Task completed!

May 8-15, 2023 - Garage Therapy

Luke's Porsche factory info feed went silent after that freeze point indication. I think perhaps to keep himself occupied, Luke undertook a little freshening project for his garage, to prepare it for the arrival of such a special vehicle. He painted the walls in an attractive two-tone, separated by a thin red (Carmine Red-ish) line, then applied epoxy paint to the concrete floor. Luke had also recently discovered the 3D Augmented reality app that Porsche had developed, and was having fun placing 3D images of his to-be-built Boxster in various real-world scenarios.

All of this effort with the garage and that shot of the 3D Boxster got me thinking - we could create a little post documenting his garage freshening, complete with a 3D-model of his Boxster that self-draws into his garage - as a little preview of what was to come. Would be fun and would yield us some new content.

On May 17, we released the next GTS Chronicles Instagram Post: "The Boxster's New Home". You can view it on Instagram here, or directly in this webpage, below:

>

The GTS Chronicles IG Post 071 - "The Boxster's New Home"

Throughout May, 2023 - The Cayman "Heavy Camera" Interior Bar Mount

I knew I was going to do a lot of filming from the cockpit of my new Cayman. And conveniently, Porsche Caymans come with this very handy long aluminum bar just behind the seats, in a perfect location to mount a camera. I had discovered (and printed) a 3d-printed clamp that was designed to hold a GoPro camera (a small personal mini action camera), but it was soon very clear that if I mounted anything heavy to it - like my Canon R6 Mark II camera, it was simply too wobbly. I needed to come up with something better. With the help of Alex - a work colleague - we came up with a 3D design for a lens holder addition that could be affixed along with the bar mount and which would hopefully provide the necessary support. I worked on this sub-project for much of May.

The main idea was to create some sort of cradle to hold up and stabilize the larger lenses that would be affixed to whatever large camera we were using on the bar. I got a few prototype pieces tested and just roughed things out on a desktop with boxes and books placed at roughly the right angles to simulate the bar and the sloping plastic interior moulding in front of the bar.

After the initial desktop prototyping, on May 2 I managed to score some time in Winston's Cayman S for the first in-car fitting of this "heavy camera" mount solution. It turned out that the length of the support column was too far off (even though we had built an adjustment mechanism into the length). It also became apparent, fiddling around inside of the Cayman and taking a few static test shots, that there were going to be occasions where I would want the camera angled to the left or right (not straight ahead). And in order to achieve that, we needed another "joint" (an articulation point) in the support's design. Back to the drawing board...

Originally I just repurposed the existing online 3D model, which had a mount to accommodate a GoPro mount base. I was able to use this with my larger camera, but it meant adding another adapter to convert from the GoPro mount to the standard 1/4"-20 camera mount bolt hole. This added unwanted extra height and, I learned, a reduction in stability and an increase in unwanted movement. So, Alex and I worked together to create a version of the Cayman bar attachment that did away with the GoPro mount part and directly incorporated a hole for the 1/4-20 connection to the camera. We had to experiment with using denser 3D-printing in the area of the hole in order to give it enough structural integrity to hold the camera firmly in place. And then I bought some metal 1/4"-20 inserts to use as the actual attachment point. The result was a nice, low-profile, more solid and stable connection between the camera and the bar mount.

May 10, 2024 - Boxster SELECTED

Right on our predicted schedule, the order status of Luke's Boxster goes to V220 (Vehicle Selected for Production)

On May 10, Luke's Boxster reaches V220 status (Vehicle selected for production)

And then, rather unexpectedly, the very next day he advances forward to V250 (Vehicle Fixed for Production) ... and gets a VIN number. Luke's Boxster is on a tear!

On May 11, Luke's Boxster reaches V250 status (Vehicle fixed for production) - and gets a VIN Number

We hoped for a speedy continuation along these lines. Maybe Luke's Boxster would be out of the factory and headed to Leipzig before the end of the month!

May 13, 14, and 21 - Photo and Video training - and Mic testing

Amazingly, we managed to fit in three camera photo and video training sessions in May. We took the learnings from our April classroom session and started applying them "in the field" (ok, more like "in the parking lot"). Focus. Exposure. ISO. Aperture. How to take a set of instructions for a shot and quickly set up the camera and take the shot. Discussions around issues around dealing with moving targets (which frequently we would be, on those delicious European mountain twisties).

Then we practiced capturing shots of motion (again, very important for car photography), getting each crew member to practice panning, both with respect to the required settings and with the required physical technique. Luke was the test driver in my 2018 BMW (hadn't found a buyer yet), doing slower and faster laps in the parking lot while our little gaggle of crew used him as target practice. We had more hits than misses, but in the end I think everyone had a much better idea of the basics. And that was a lot better than being completely lost while out in the field in Europe.

We wrapped up the sessions with the settings and techniques related to video and audio, especially about what frame rates to choose to achieve the desired look (I really hate that staccato strobe-y effect of too high a shutter speed), and some testing with the various types of microphones we had and which worked best in everyday situations in and around cars.

In all, very useful. Very useful sessions. And I thank all of the crew members who took time out of three separate days in May to get this done!

May 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 18, oh heck ... let's just say most days in May, 2023 - The [In]convenience Sale

You may recall that somewhere earlier in this story I had mentioned that Luke and I needed to get our existing "nice" cars sold before completing payment on our new GTS 4.0 cars. This is because there is a special sales tax rule in the province in which we live (Ontario, Canada) that allows you to, when buying a new car from a dealership, avoid paying sales tax on the amount of whatever car you trade in to the dealership for that car. Now, here's where it gets a little more fancy. Luke and I were planning to sell our cars privately, direct to a seller, in order to get the best possible price. In this kind of situation, you aren't selling your used car to the dealer. However Ontario has another incentive rule that allows you to "pass the sale through" the dealership in such a scenario. Essentially, the buyer of the used car pays the dealership (Porsche Centre London in this case) for the used car. The amount of the sale is recorded on the order for the purchase of the new car (our Cayman and/or Boxster) as a trade-in; but in reality, the dealer never sees the used car - it is transferred directly from me (us) to the buyer. And in doing so, the amount of sales tax on the new car is reduced by the amount of that used car's sale price.

It seems scammy, but ... it is an actual legally allowable transaction, laid out in Ontario legislation. Presumably it was something lobbied for by dealers in times past in order to let them offer an additional incentive for customers to buy a car from them. Oh, and, dealers can charge for this transaction - and they do. In the case of Porsche Centre London, that amount was $500 (which was subsequently raised to $1000 when AutoCanada took over).

Luke and I had long ago crunched the numbers and even with that "Convenience Sale Fee", it was absolutely worth it. In the case of my M2, the amount of tax saved by selling this way *including the $1000 fee* ended up being upwards of five thousand dollars (depending on the actual selling price of the used car, of course). In Luke's case, even with a car (the s2000) worth substantially less than the M2 on the used market, he was still looking at two to three thousand in tax savings. Not to be sneezed at.

So, we were resolved to do this "Convenience Sale" thing (or "Trade-through", as Porsche Centre London was calling it). How did that go? Well, let's just say ... we got it done. It wasn't easy, though.

Way back when (two years ago), Christina had sent us a brief precis of the convenience sale process. But her dealership had gone through a change of ownership since then so I figured I should get the updated instructions regarding the process. So, to get that kicked off, during the first and second weekend in May, I started sending some emails and leaving some voicemails to her.

Complete silence in response. I knew she was still working and checking Porsche stuff because during this time I noticed an Instagram like from her on one of our recent GTS Chronicles IG Posts. So, she was clearly "around". Still, silence from queries about anything to do with financial stuff - especially with our various deadlines and dates approaching - was unnerving. My mind went to scary scenarios. Was there some bad news being hidden?

After leaving a judicious amount of time for a response, I decided I couldn't wait any longer. I sent a text to her personal cell number, apologizing for the intrusion but explaining that we needed to get moving on our convenience sales, and could we have the current process, please. Somewhat surprisingly, I got an email response right away. She answered one of my questions (which was about the feasibility of the convenience sale to out-of-province buyers, which it turns out is not allowed). She also apologized and explained that the dealership's entire email system, phone extension system, voice mail system of the dealership was very flakey and essentially non functional. Still, I thought? What kind of unmeasurable, long-term impact was that having on the dealership's business, I wondered?

Apparently, she had seen all of my earlier email attempts and had responded but the replies were just ... sitting there in her outbox, unsent. Along with similar behavior for other clients. Geez. No matter - her response meant there was no bad news being withheld from us and it was just the same sort of thing we had seen numerous time before: inefficiencies, misconfigurations, disorganization.

Wanting to avoid further delays, I asked Christina if I could just text her on her personal cell number, avoiding the dealership infrastructure entirely. She agreed.

During this time, I had located a firm buyer for my 2018 M2, and at a fairly decent price: $52,000CDN. His name was Andy and he was located in the Newmarket area, north of Toronto. I told him about the desire to process the sale as a "Trade-Through" with Porsche Centre London, and he was ok with it.

Now using direct text messaging (an an occasional phone call), I spent a significant amount of time attempting to nail down how Porsche Centre London wanted to handle the Convenience/Trade-Through process. Instead of getting a full set of instructions (say, in an email or on a page somewhere on their website), all of the steps and required documentation and procedures came in little dribs and drabs. In all, it probably took about two weeks of back-and-forth messaging to gather and proceed through all of the steps and give all of the required information. Spread across multiple contacts at the dealership. I asked myself ... was this the first time they had done a "Trade-through" sale? I mused about creating a comprehensive checklist for them: "here's what you do when you want to complete a Trade-through sale. Follow it closely and give all of the information to us when you have accumulated it all. Establish a dialog with your seller; Explain that they will be buying through the dealer, etc; Prepare such and such documents (license, registration papers, safety inspection, etc); Get the documents to us in advance of the sale; Do not buy a Used Vehicle Information Package (not needed in this scenario); A Bill-of-sale will be sent to the buyer which they must sign and return to the dealership; Ensure a bank draft gets sent from the buyer to the dealer by date X. Ask if the seller wants new plates or not; ". And on and on - there were actually quite a few steps to complete. And if they had such a checklist, they could distribute it in the future to their customers so that everybody's time wasn't unnecessarily wasted. Wouldn't that be ... like 300% more efficient???

I think my frustration with this process was best summed up with a comment I texted to Luke on May 17: "Why does everything have to be like pulling teeth?".

At the very least, my extensive note taking would benefit Luke, who was a few weeks behind me in the process of getting his S2000 sold. Fortunately, a good friend - local to Ottawa - was interested in buying it. That made things quite a bit easier for him, since there was no long-distance travel or communications involved. Still, Luke found it extremely useful to have been able to compile a coles-notes distilled checklist of the Trade-through process with Porsche Centre London. As I neared the completion of my two-week process, I gave Luke some ... let's call it ... "guidance" ... (note: Bernie is the used vehicle sales manager at Porsche Centre London, with whom some of the steps needed to be done):

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 25, 2023, 9:03 AM
I assume you are preparing a nice single comprehensive communication that you can send simultaneously to both Christina and Bernie?

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 25, 2023, 9:04 AM
So you can do all of this in 1 step instead of the 15 steps it is taking me...?

From: Luke Ward - May 25, 2023, 9:05 AM
Correct.

From: Luke Ward - May 25, 2023, 9:05 AM
Would you share with me Bernie's contact info?

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 25, 2023, 9:06 AM
the phone number is just their front desk number

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 25, 2023, 9:07 AM
and if he is not in, then a phone call will just go to a stupid "we're sorry - you've reached a voice mailbox that has not been configured" message. Unbelievably, it appears that their broken phone setup spans multiple employees (maybe the whole thing is non-functional?)

From: Luke Ward - May 25, 2023, 9:07 AM
Thanks

From: Luke Ward - May 25, 2023, 9:08 AM
Seems like such a fundamental thing that needs to be in place for a sales organization

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 25, 2023, 9:08 AM
I think they should go back to some tightly strung strings and cups. Would be better.

From: Luke Ward - May 25, 2023, 9:09 AM
Reinforces the validity of Christina's comments about their IT infrastructure

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 25, 2023, 9:09 AM
What I don't get is why they can't all together push back hard on the owners to fix their shit

As a final note in this section, I offer - as a public service - the full and complete process to perform said trade-through sale, as a google document, here.

May 22, 2023 - The Big Fit Test

On May 22, we gathered up every single piece of gear on our lists, selected the set of clothes, our toiletries, and sundry other items we were going to bring to Europe, loaded them up in big duffel bags, and hauled them over to friend Winston's place. It was a nice sunny day (deliberately chosen), and it was time to do a real fit test. As in, would all of our stuff and our gear fit into one Cayman and one Boxster, and still have room left over for one or (in a pinch) two crew members.

Now, Winston only had one Cayman. Our solution for this was to lay out all of our stuff on his driveway and split it in half. Since the luggage capacity of the Boxster and Cayman were roughly the same, this would still give us an accurate sense of whether everything would fit.

The duffels of stuff we brought to Winston's driveway felt huge, massive. I was seriously starting to doubt the ability of our two cars to swallow it all. My fears continued to mount as we carefully laid everything out in the bright sunshine. There was stuff laid out everywhere, in all directions. *So* *much* *stuff*.

Next, we carefully put aside one-half of everything that was laid out. We laid out the "half-load" around Winston's Cayman for a couple of photos, and then we started on the actual fit activity.

Stuff went in. Then more stuff. And more. And with each passing item, my fears started to subside. The Cayman was swallowing it all! In the hatch area, the lower space was quite wide, and included some semi-hidden nooks and crannies that increased its capacity. The two bins on the upper rear deck were quite a bit more voluminous than you would think; lots of stuff could fit in there. And the frunk ... the frunk seemed to possess a certain bottomless quality to it. It almost seemed as is the floor of the frunk was below the level of the pavement!

What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that the "1/2 load" was fully loaded into the Cayman. And it had all fit surprisingly easily. And we didn't even have to use the "emergency" space on the cargo shelf above the engine. I was impressed. And relieved. That meant that even in the extreme case of two simultaneous crew members, everything should fit into the two cars (assuming some reasonable restraint on the part of our crewmembers, of course). Bottom line - the fit test was a success, and an important to-do item checked off of our list.

The fit test was also the perfect opportunity for a relevant bit of GTS Chronicles Instagram content, and so a week or two after the session, we published a tidy little Benny Hill-soundtracked fun accounting of the day. You can see the post on Instagram here, or inline below:

The GTS Chronicles IG Post 072 - "The Fit Test"

May 24, 2024 - The Birth of the Boxster

It had been an uncomfortable two weeks on the Boxster production front, as the wham-bang of V220/V250 had been followed by no movement for much longer than with the Cayman. As usual, mild anxiousness had started to creep in. Fortunately, on May 24, more or less on the original timeline, Luke reported the following, along with expressions of relief:

On May 24, Luke's Boxster finally enters production (v260)

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 24, 2023, 8:29 AM
Thank God

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 24, 2023, 8:30 AM
Congrats sir! Now we're cooking!

From: Luke Ward - May 24, 2023, 8:30 AM
A modicum of relief for us, yes!

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 24, 2023, 8:30 AM
Modicum?

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 24, 2023, 8:30 AM
Monumental dollop, more like it

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 24, 2023, 8:52 AM
I feel you should be more excited than feeling a "modicum of relief"!

From: Luke Ward - May 24, 2023, 8:56 AM
Yes, I was kidding. It's massive.

From: Luke Ward - May 24, 2023, 8:59 AM
Feels damn real now!!!

And then Luke again needed to wait ... for a few days, until his car was produced by the factory and reached v300 (production complete) status. Normally no big deal, but we were nearing the end of May at this point ... less than 8 weeks until our delivery day, and looming ever larger. Also, getting to v300 meant full payment of the cars was coming up soon. Yet Luke was still trying to complete the Trade-through process on his S2000, and it was not going quite as fast as he would have liked (although much faster for him than for me, thanks to our newly-generated "How-to-do-a-Trade-Through-sale-with-Porsche-of-London" document). So, on one hand, he wanted his car fully built, but on the other hand, didn't want Christina to come asking for full payment quite yet. Stressful. He just wanted it all out of the way:

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 26, 2023, 1:05 PM
55 days before delivery, as of today

From: Luke Ward - May 26, 2023, 1:26 PM
Yep. I'd feel much better about that if a) my car was built and b) the S2000 transaction was complete

From: Luke Ward - May 26, 2023, 1:26 PM
Working on both I guess.

Luke's Thoughts

[on waiting for the Boxster to build...]

My nerves are on edge. "Why?" you might well ask, with a new Porsche in the offing, and a confirmed delivery date in July, less than two months from now.

Well because the darn thing isn't built yet. I know, I know, it only takes them 3-4 days to actually put one of these incredible machines together; a pretty stunning display of technical and supply-chain competence, just-in-time manufacturing, whatever you want to call it.

But it's nerve-wracking waiting, after all the ups and downs of the previous almost-three years - to be so close!

(to read more of Luke's thoughts from this moment, check out his blog post)

Fortunately, later that evening (I was doing checks on Luke's Boxster status on his behalf)...

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 26, 2023, 10:57 PM
ok one last boxster status check for the day...

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 26, 2023, 10:57 PM
% ~/scripts/luke_boxster_status
"Current Status Code: V300"

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 26, 2023, 10:58 PM
lookee lookee

From: Luke Ward - May 26, 2023, 10:58 PM
Oh boy

From: Luke Ward - May 26, 2023, 10:58 PM
So that's it eh?

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 26, 2023, 11:00 PM
ok then. At least you have something to think about as you go to bed tonight

From: Luke Ward - May 26, 2023, 11:00 PM
Wooooooohoooooooooo

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 26, 2023, 11:00 PM
yes, congrats

From: Luke Ward - May 26, 2023, 11:01 PM
We did it!!!!

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 26, 2023, 11:01 PM
now let's get this car sale stuff out of the way and work on the many remaining items

From: Luke Ward - May 26, 2023, 11:01 PM
Yep!

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 26, 2023, 11:01 PM
ok signing off

From: Luke Ward - May 26, 2023, 11:01 PM
Thanks again! Woot woot

Some welcome elation - and relief. Onwards!

I figured some production images were now available for viewing. I had asked Luke to hold off on looking at them, as I wanted to try and capture the emotion of the moment of seeing a photo of one's long-awaited dream. We did that at a local pub late the next evening, and discovered a curious thing: only two of the four possible pictures came out of the app - two were missing. Apparently this is not that uncommon of an occurrence. Fortunately, the most important picture - the one showing the car in all its glory, at the end of production, was there.

(Note: I need to make a small correction to the above. I had been using a script to check Luke's Boxster status and I had inadvertently been logged in as "Andrew" and not "Luke". So, I was actually looking at my own Cayman's status that had long ago gone to v300. But I had logged in properly as "Luke" to view the pictures, and they were indeed of his Boxster. A picture was worth a thousand words, and it was unequivocal: Luke's Boxster lived (and a few days later, Luke's Boxster did actually officially go to v300).

The fact that Luke's Boxster was fully produced (and without any weird mistakes like black wheels) was cause for celebration. I'm sure it was weird and surreal to see the thing you had conceived of, dreamed of, had carefully-specified, sitting there in "real life" after years of waiting. I had felt some of that back in March when the Cayman's final build picture had been available. It's best to sum up this moment with Luke's own words...

Luke's Thoughts

[on seeing his own Boxster GTS, sitting finished...]

There it is.

In Carmine Red glory, sitting on the gantry at the end of the Porsche production line. The dream is real, in aluminum and steel, plastic and glass, and whatever else goes into these incredible machines. Now it is tangible. Now there's a real car sitting in a warehouse in Leipzig, next to its Cayman brother, quietly awaiting our arrival.

I'll be honest, I get a little choked up when I see this photo. It just looks so...so...intoxicating. I think that's the word. The gorgeous lines, the hints as to what it will drive like cued by the large sport wheels and the big red calipers; the front 'chin' and the little spoiler lift at the rear. And that red. The gloss! It's stunning, and for now I can only imagine it in person. What will it be like to crack open the door and slide down into the driver's seat, look out over the two front fenders and down the low, narrow hood? What will it feel like when I turn that left-hand key for the first time and hear the bark of that jewel of an engine. All the YouTube videos will not have done it justice I am sure.

I'm not sure how I'm going to sleep in the days leading up to it, but thankfully for now, there's lots to keep me busy!

(to read more of Luke's thoughts from this moment, check out his blog post)

The completion of the second car of The GTS Chronicles got my mental wheels to spin. The idea of "newsflash" came to me and I thought that would make an excellent bit of new content for the GTS Chronicles Instagram feed. A bit of time with Adobe After Effects and we came up with this little clip (bonus - there's an audio CW easter egg in this clip for any HAM radio operators out there):

(On Instagram here , or inline below:)

The GTS Chronicles IG Post 073 - "The Boxster is Finally Built"

We were starting to feel some real satisfaction with our project at this point. The GTS Chronicles was and is something cool - even if we didn't have official Porsche collaboration.

From: Luke Ward - May 31, 2023, 12:11 AM
That might be my favourite one yet

From: Luke Ward - May 31, 2023, 12:12 AM
Clever photo to logo work at the end

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 31, 2023, 12:12 AM
Spent a few days trying to think of something fresh

From: Luke Ward - May 31, 2023, 12:18 AM
Can you hold off posting until later tomorrow?

From: Luke Ward - May 31, 2023, 12:18 AM
I'd like to use it to be a reveal for my coworkers

From: Luke Ward - May 31, 2023, 12:19 AM
am showing the [pitch] video in a session tomorrow

From: Luke Ward - May 31, 2023, 12:19 AM
And ending with this would be awesome

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 31, 2023, 12:19 AM
ok sure. Hope you blow them away

From: Luke Ward - May 31, 2023, 12:19 AM
Oh I'm sure I will

From: Luke Ward - May 31, 2023, 12:20 AM
If you step back, what we have here is quite something

=== Other May 2023 Events and Activities ===

Woof ... A lot sure did happen in May of 2023! But, amazingly, I haven't recounted all of it: a smattering of other activities and tasks and events came and went. Before we close out our description of the month, let's quickly enumerate them here:

May 15, 2023 - Wow, things are going fast

Luke and I notice that, gee, everything surrounding our trip is starting to come fast and furious now. I liken it to a spaceship on a long journey to the event horizon of a black hole:

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 15, 2023, 9:19 AM
crazy how today is already halfway through May

From: Luke Ward - May 15, 2023, 9:21 AM
Yes, time is flying by

From: Luke Ward - May 15, 2023, 9:21 AM
Pre allocation waiting seemed to take forever

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 15, 2023, 9:22 AM
I don't want to lose the sense of how slow and long it was.

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 15, 2023, 9:23 AM
I guess this is what notes and logs and journalling is for.

From: Luke Ward - May 15, 2023, 9:24 AM
And convey the longness?.

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 15, 2023, 9:25 AM
I feel 3d gravity wireframes perfectly conveys how it feels...flat nothingness forever and then .... fwoooop

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 15, 2023, 9:27 AM
I think we are right about here:

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 15, 2023, 9:30 AM
hm - this could be the making of a good IG post

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 15, 2023, 9:33 AM
"imagine: a GTS chronicles roundel floating through a starry landscape ... then one of those grid lines passes by ... then the the camera pulls back and you see a plain of grid lines stretching away into the distance ... then slowly the speed of movement over the grid lines increases ... then the bend/hole is visible in the distance ... more speedup ... speedup ... speedup ... then a rapid descent into the hole and a bit of wormhole-ish type effects and then fade to white and then ... fade to maybe the big shot of the Leipzig tower or something. With suitable titling throughout."

Would indeed be a cool IG post. But I wasn't super-skilled with 3D stuff in After Effects, and, well ... things were too busy!!! Had to let this idea pass by.

May 17, 2023 - The final 3D cutaways

The 3D detailed cutaways of our Cayman and Boxster cars, right down to every detail specific to our builds, were complete and ready for us to download on May 17. Commissioned by Luke some time ago from Randy Brown (rbrown_svt@yahoo.com), we had recently submitted our final build configurations and now we had the final , high-res versions. Rendered excellently and for a modest fee, they were going to make for excellent garage wall art:

May 18, 2023 - Porsche Pints

Continuing our local Ottawa meetup with current (and future) Porsche 718 owners for a round of pints. A nice way to share exciting news and bounce ideas of fellow Porsche-o-philes.

May 26, 2023 - GTS Chronicles Doorsill Stickers

On May 26, I completed my task of designing, ordering and shaping vinyl stickers to place over top of the standard door sill stickers in our cars. They were rendered with a simulated aluminum textured background to make them appear (from a distance at least) to be actual door-sill plates. The design on these stickers? Well, The GTS Chronicles official banner, of course.

May 16 & 29, 2023 - Crew T-Shirts

Being official GTS Chronicles staff, we wanted our crew to be properly outfitted, and so we ordered a couple of batches of custom GTS Chronicles crew t-shirts. Plus a couple of extras for ourselves.

Designing and ordering official GTS Chronicles Crew T-Shirts. Nothing but the best for our generous pro-bono crewmembers!

May 31, 2023 - Boxster in-transit to Leipzig

On the last day of the month, the final status update that Luke had been waiting for - an indication that his car is out of the factory, and on its way (probably via truck) to Leipzig, Germany, where our European Delivery ceremony will be held on July 20.

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 31, 2023, 3:09 PM
status update for you:

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 31, 2023, 3:09 PM
as of 3:00pm today:

% ~/scripts/luke_boxster_status "VIN: WP0CD2A86PS216547" "Current Status Code: V300" "Current Status Details:" { "type": "path", "ident": "PlantZuffenhausen_PlantLeipzig", "start": { "ident": "PlantZuffenhausen", "lat": "48.835012", "lng": "9.152131" }, "end": { "ident": "PlantLeipzig", "lat": "51.405770", "lng": "12.296531" } }

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 31, 2023, 3:10 PM
you are in transit

From: Andrew Lavigne - May 31, 2023, 3:18 PM
or rather, your Boxster is in transit.

From: Luke Ward - May 31, 2023, 7:26 PM
Heading to Leipzig to meet its buddy! Excellent news.

May 31, 2023 - Sending an Update to the Mothership

With all of the important advancements in our GTS Chronicles journey, we thought we should update the contact Dave Renner had set up for us - Paul Gregor at Porsche Global Community Management in Germany. Having shown advancement towards our goal and having put forward significant and (we thought) compelling content, we thought that perhaps we might have surpassed the bar above which Porsche might be now interested in some media collaboration. In my best writing voice, I pen him an update:

Hi, Paul

Hope you are doing well. I thought I would send you an update on our "The GTS Chronicles" Porsche Passion Project (a double Euro delivery and road-focused trip of two grassroots enthusiasts and two 718 GTS 4.0 models - one a Boxster and one a Cayman).

Much has changed over the months since I last emailed you. Namely, Luke and I have our allocations, we have a delivery date of July 20, our cars have been built and they are in our chosen delivery location of Leipzig (or nearly in Leipzig - the last I checked, Luke's Boxster GTS was in transit), we have grassroots crew-members who are going to help us record everything, and we've developed a quirky little Instagram feed to document our story.
(https://www.instagram.com/gtschronicles).

We still think there is great value to Porsche in terms of potential brand enhancement, and if you agree, perhaps you can forward our idea on to the right contacts within Porsche. Essentially we're looking to maximize the quality of the story we record/tell, and we know that Porsche's media team might have ideas or experience that could help us do that. In return, we'd be happy to share any content that we produce.

...Andrew and Luke

Web: https://gtschronicles.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/gtschronicles

All Throughout May - The Very Best From Dave

Throughout May, Dave Renner continued to be our champion-from-afar. The order he sent to us from Detroit (containing the price-reduced RGS front radiator grilles he managed to finagle for us) contained a couple of gifts - two custom-commissioned Porsche 75th-anniversary insulated vests, and two 75th anniversary pewter plaques.

More importantly, on the advocacy front, Dave had not stopped working on our behalf. On May 21, Dave was meeting with the current and former heads of the Vienna Porsche Club, and offered to bring up the cause of The GTS Chronicles at that meeting. Dave was also preparing for his trip to Germany to take part in the Porsche 75th anniversary celebrations, and was going to have dinner their with a former superior of Paul Gregor (Paul was the very Porsche contact to which we had been sending our queries about collaboration). Dave intended to advocate for collaboration with The GTS Chronicles in that meetup. Dave was then planning on going on a sort of ... I guess you could say ... a tour of various who's-who in the Porsche world - to the custom upholsterer Justin Placek in Hamburg; then to Zurich to meet with folks at elevenparts.com (who had helped dave import his 1986 911 Carrera 3.2 "Turbo Look" to the U.S.); then a stop to meet the legendary Alois Ruf in Pfaffenhausen; then to Austria to meet with some friends at Jensen restoration; then a stop in Gmund, Austria, where the first Porsche was built; then back to Germany to visit at a museum run by Wolfgang Porsche's brother and then to to Switzerland to attend the official Porsche 75th anniversary celebrations in Zurich.

Dave planned to mention and advocate for The GTS Chronicles whenever he could, and ... if we sent him some business cards, decals, and stickers, he would pass these around at each of these stops. That was an incredible offer. We quickly put in an order for a new round of swag, making sure to order enough extras so Dave could liberally spread them around. Once received, we quickly put a package together and express-mailed it down to Dave in advance of his early June trip departure date. He sent us a final update email before going off on his trip:

Hello,

Great. Maybe [your latest email] may prompt some action on Paul's part.

As I mentioned, I will be having dinner with the former boss of Paul in the group on Thursday night next week. I will mention this to her and share some emails to see if we can get some more play for you guys.

I'm excited for you guys. It's gonna be a great adventure and looking forward to all the videos.

I'll keep an eye out for the mail and the business cards. I will definitely move them along.

I need to go get ready. Not working next Tuesday, the day before I'm leaving. Talk to you soon.

Dave was weaving his help for us into all aspects of the work and travel he was doing. It was very easy for us to forget that with all of the rush of things that were happening in advance of our journey, and I want to stop (once again) in this narrative and simply say:

"Thank you, Dave".