Refinishing the Wheels on Our 911 (964)

There’s a saying that “everything has a soul.” Treat an appliance with care, and it may keep working reliably for years. And sometimes, the moment you say, “It’s been acting up lately—we should replace it,” it suddenly starts working perfectly again.

I sometimes wonder if the same thing can be said of cars.

The other day, my husband had the wheels on our 911 (964) refinished at an automotive repair shop. Given the car’s age, they had plenty of balancing marks and small scratches, and the clear coat had started peeling, leaving the finish looking dull.

The refinished wheels, looking as good as new.

We had the wheels refinished by Total Repair Avenir and didn’t change anything else—not the suspension or any other parts. Still, my husband said:

“I don’t know, but now that the wheels look so good, the 964 somehow seems to drive better. It’s like how a car seems happy and runs more freely after you wash it.
Toyota once did an experiment showing that adding aluminum tape to a car can improve its handling. I wonder if this is something like that…”

We humans are prone to imagining things, and there’s even the placebo effect—when someone feels better because they believe a treatment contains an effective ingredient, even though it doesn’t. So perhaps it’s all in our heads. But I’m not sure I can say it’s *entirely* imaginary.

How Each Porsche 964 Service Brings It to Life

The other day, I was thinking of heading to the supermarket on a rainy day and asked the kids if they wanted to come. They said, “No, we’re watching YouTube,” so…w I decided to go shopping alone for a change.

My husband suggested, “Why not take the 964, since you’re going out anyway?”

But it was raining pretty hard, so I said, “It’s raining, and I don’t want to get it dirty.” He replied:

“That’s fine—we can wash it again. It seems to drive better since we had the wheels refinished, and we’ve replaced the headlights and interior lights with LEDs, so you can see how those feel, too.”

Come to think of it, my husband has been tinkering with the 964 late into the night lately, doing all sorts of things as if he were “bringing the 964 back to life as a modern car.” I hope to share more about that in a future post.

So I took the 964 out for a drive in the rain—and it really did feel easier to drive than before.

Of course, my husband had already told me it felt “better.” I’ve also grown more comfortable driving the 964 over time, and I’ve become more attached to it.

Still, with every round of maintenance, it feels as though the car is responding—and that, somehow, its spirit is growing stronger.

The latest Porsche models are more capable, come with additional safety features, and are easier to drive. But with the 964, it feels like a “well-engineered car, built on solid fundamentals, is gradually getting back to the way it drove when it was new”—not that I was around to know what that was like.

Before the 964 came home, my husband started saying he was “getting interested in buying a 964” and searched used-car listings almost every day. Honestly, I wondered, “Why go out of your way to buy such an old car? He really is a car enthusiast.”

Even after he bought it, he kept taking it in for maintenance. I watched and thought, “I didn’t realize an old car would cost this much to keep after you buy it. They really are a lot of work.”

But now I’ve seen for myself that even a 30-year-old car can run this well if it’s properly maintained and cared for. I’ve come to think, “There’s something wonderful about continuing to care for and drive a car built decades ago”—even if it does cost a fair bit.

Of course, that’s only possible because the 964 is a capable, well-built car in the first place.

A 911 with a Soul

To return to what I said at the beginning about everything having a soul, of all the cars in our household, the 964 feels like the one with the strongest soul—though maybe that’s just because it’s an old car.

It was built in Germany, has driven all kinds of roads, and has seen all sorts of places and had all kinds of experiences. And now, with a new owner, it seems ready to keep going—setting off on more adventures and giving it everything it’s got…

By the way, it seems that well-kept 964s have recently been selling for more than ¥10 million. My husband says:

“I paid around ¥7 million when I bought mine, but if I ever let it go, I might not be able to find another one in the same condition.”

He may be right… Once it’s gone, we might not find another one like it. I hope we can keep taking good care of it for many years to come.