First: I traded my '57 Porsche 356 Speedster for a Tesla Model 3. Was I nuts?

The day my neighbor brought his black Model 3 home, I got "auto-lust" again. You know...wanting a new car so much your teeth sweat. But we were already a three-car family in a two-car garage so that wouldn't work without some sacrifice. My sweet wife mentioned it was time to let the Porsche go...it had only been in our family 30 years!

But, I yielded. It couldn't be parked outside and we had a generous offer from another Porsche owner, so off it went. 

And down the tears flowed as it drove off into the sunset!

And not just the day's sunset but the sunset...the last sunset...of my youth, because without it I was officially an old man at last. 

But...I was an old man in a red Tesla Model 3! Thank you, Elon. Farewell, Ferdinand Porsche!

What I gave up for my Model 3...'57 Porsche 356A Speedster

What happened 10 minutes after I traded the Porsche

Old man in a red Tesla Model 3! Thank you, Elon! Farewell, Ferdinand Porsche!

Question: Would any sane guy surrender a 1957 Porsche 356A Speedster for an old guy's family sedan?
Answer: No sane guy would ever do something that dumb!

I did. And Lordy, it still hurts! But now that red Model 3 Long Range Dual Motor looks pretty good in its place. A lot of things jammed together to make getting the Tesla a good idea as I satisfied my "Tesla lust"...a yearning that hit me like a sledgehammer the moment my neighbor first came home in his new Model 3! First one in the neighborhood.

To begin with, we were already a three-car family with a two-car garage, so getting the Tesla as a fourth car wasn't going to work. Next, it dawned on me years ago that the Speedster's "crumple-zone" consisted of some light sheet metal supplemented by my ankles, knees and hips, there being no engine up front. It was also kinda obvious that my passenger and I were sitting from our hips forward under the car's front ten gallon gas tank. Not being made of flame-proof Nomex, this was worrisome. But maybe the gas tank was part of the crumple-zone. What a great idea!


Other concerns: The car's roll bar consisted of my head plus a thinning short haircut. Plus my wife if she was aboard.
 
An air bag? Not to be found, there having never been one even imagined by the firm of "Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, Konstruktion und Beratung für Motoren-und Fahrzeugbau" back in 1956.