The Ultimate Midlife Crisis Cliché?
When people talk about a midlife crisis, the Porsche 911 usually shows up, right alongside hair transplants, motorbikes, and extramarital affairs. It’s a cliché, but for a pretty good reason. So that raises the question: is the 911 actually the antidote to midlife restlessness, just an expensive band-aid or maybe cry for help?
That’s the journey we’re kicking off today!
To start at the end of this journey, we’re here to make a decision. Cliché or Conclusive. Will a Porsche 911 help sort out a midlife crisis? If the scores, the experts, the stories, and my own experience all point to yes, I’ll do it: sell my current car and buy a Porsche 911.
This is the start of that experiment. Welcome to MIDLIFE911.
The Log Book Score
This project isn’t pure nostalgia and nonsense, we’re being “scientific.” To test whether the 911 is really the cure, I’ve created the Midlife Score, a 10 category system that blends head and heart.
Weekend Factors (dream)
Styling
Performance
Fun Factor
Cool Factor
Midlife Factor
Daily Factors (reality)
Comfort & Usability
Practicality
Reliability & Quality
Cost of Ownership
Value for Money
Each category gets a score from 1–10, for a maximum of 100. The Log Book Score is mine alone, but I’ll also include side notes from partners, spouses, experts, and owners who bring their own perspective.
Outcomes of the Score
0–39: It doesn’t move the needle. Nice car (or idea), but won’t touch the crisis.
40–69: Band-aid territory. Fun, but flawed. Might distract for a while, but not the cure.
70–89: Serious contender. It delivers joy, checks boxes, could be the thing.
90–100: Antidote status. This is it. The feeling, the practicality, the value, it like it solves the midlife itch.
That 100 feeling
If something scored a perfect 100, it would mean:
It stirs my emotions (nostalgia, thrill, identity).
It fits my life (family, comfort, practicality).
It makes financial and rational sense (or at least enough to justify).
And most importantly: I walk away feeling more alive, more yourself, more connected.
In other words, 100 = the cure.
Some Background
I was born in Toronto Canada in 1978, which puts me right in the thick of what people politely call “midlife.” That wild stretch between 40 and 60 when you start reflecting, re-evaluating, and chasing something new. For me, that “something” has always had a very specific silhouette.
As a teenager in the ’90s, my best friend’s father had a silver 1986 Porsche 911 Cabriolet. We called it The Silver Bullet, partly because it was a rocket, partly because his dad’s beer of choice was Coors Light.
Most weekends we’d head north from Toronto to Cobourg, 100km away, to his parents’ country house. If I wasn’t driving my own 1991 BMW E30 318is, I was in that 911 — top down, stereo up, the air-cooled flat-six screaming behind us. For a teenager, it was magic.
Decades later, the memory is still vivid. My friend Dougal has his own Silver Bullet now — a manual 997 coupe — that connects him to his two boys in a powerful way. And I get it. I’d love to create those same memories for my own kids. A 911 even makes a strange kind of sense for that: just enough seats for both girls, maybe even Mum if she’s keen.
Ever catch the Coors Light Silver Bullet?