Pablo Deferrari

A dyed-in-the wool, air-cooled 911 junkie, Pablo Deferrari doesn't discriminate against other Porsches. Want further proof? He's in love with Porsche’s early water-cooled models and is dedicated to the celebration of the 924, 928, 944 and 968 series. Pablo is one car away from having all four of these models in his own collection: the 924.

Pablo Deferrari
pablo.deferrari@flussigmagazine.com

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Articles by Pablo Deferrari

• A cerebral misfire — Using an aftermarket part on my Porsche

  Tuesday, July 03, 2018

  Ripping through the gears of my Porsche 968 out of the Exit 14 tolls off the New Jersey Turnpike, I was about 15 miles from home when I caught a whiff of coolant. "That can’t be me…impossible; it’s the car up ahead," I said to myself. But my gut knew the inevitable was about to happen. The orange needle minding the temperature was at 7 o’clock then it slowly crept to second white bar at 9 o’clock, stayed there for a bit before sinking back to where it’d been.

• 100-mile ice cream run in a Porsche 968

  Tuesday, April 10, 2018

  ​Ice cream. My woman loves it. We were out, and she had to have some. What better reason for a road trip than to quench my sweet's desire? Popping 'round to the local market would've been the sensible approach, but that's boring.

• A Moccaschwarz Porsche 924 rekindles the flame

  Monday, March 12, 2018

  The fire that raged for 924s was reduced to an ember. This happens with nearly everything I obsess about. It’s possible that knowing everything about a particular subject leaves nothing to the imagination. This becomes a problem because the next step in an obsession is possession and that can be ruined psychologically. When all is revealed, the fascination dissolves. A 1980 Porsche 924 dressed in Moccaschwarz was the puff that ember begged for.

• The reincarnation of a Porsche tire

  Monday, February 26, 2018

  "What's the tire for?" Lots of co-workers saw the thing in my studio, certainly a few had been meaning to ask, but this guy was the first. I looked down at it and then at him.

• Why keep a repair journal?

  Tuesday, January 09, 2018

  "Alright, everybody — JOURNALS!" It must've been seventh grade. Mrs. Zarrow began every third-period English class with that phrase ... and I had no idea what to put in it.

• The green genie: A proper Porsche 968 pressure plate

  Tuesday, November 28, 2017

  ​I'd had it. I was through driving this 968. Aside from the looks, handling and power, the thing had one quality that kept me enduring the agony of rolling on: the drop top.

• Archaeological tool expeditions

  Tuesday, October 31, 2017

  There are typically three choices when buying tools. You can buy them cheap, made in a land far, far away; go broke buying the best; or settle on straddling the two extremes with mediocre goods. There's a fourth way, and chances are you figured it out reading the previous paragraph.

• Bricks, mortar ... and spark plugs

  Tuesday, October 03, 2017

  ​It happened on a whim. A routine pounding of a few keys commanding some entity to fetch a set of spark plugs and have them at my door in a few days was stopped dead.

• Porsche’s industrial art

  Tuesday, September 05, 2017

  "Didn't you hear me calling you?" "No," I said. "Wait ... hang on a second." My woman stood there, arms crossed, watching me stage a 968 hydraulic timing belt tensioner in a light box for another round of photographs.

• The Tao of Porsche repair

  Monday, July 10, 2017

  ​"Also, bist du ein Porschemechaniker?" "Nein," I said, "es ist mein Hobby." He looked at the pile of parts, then looked at me.

• The Grand Tour: Cruising our 968 through Pennsylvania’s Slate Belt

  Tuesday, April 25, 2017

  "Bear-leader? You're looking at him," I said, slamming the door shut. It was another back-door Grand Tour, and my woman was asking where our chaperon was.

• Meeting Porsche’s ambassador of desire

  Monday, February 27, 2017

  "A Porsche," Michael said,"is a car you don't need ..." 200 milliseconds before he'd finished his sentence, I thought of at least 36 reasons why I did. " ... it's a car you want." There it was. Possibly the single-most illogical reason why people walk through the glass doors into a showroom full of 911s, 718s, Panameras, Cayennes and Macans. Michael illustrated an example.

• The Delaware to France

  Friday, December 16, 2016

  ​They had no idea. Six pistons had been fired awake without a clue they'd be pounding us down paths founders of this country had squatted, built and defended. Their needs were simple; air, gas and a bit of spark — and so were ours.

• What goes on behind that parts counter?

  Monday, September 26, 2016

  I had none left. It was late Thursday afternoon. I'd decided to change the 968's oil on Saturday, but I had no filters left. There were Mahle filters under the workbench — six OC229s and five OC213s for the 993, two OC46s for the 928 — but not one OC142.

• Paterek Brothers: A New Jersey institution

  Monday, August 08, 2016

  Maxwell's in Hoboken, The Dirt Club in Bloomfield, City Gardens in Trenton, The Showplace in Dover and The Stone Pony in Asbury Park. They reeked of cheap perfume, their walls sweat whiskey, and the floors were littered with punched-out cigarettes, but they were institutions — New Jersey's rock and roll institutions. You may have never heard of such names, but some of the world's most legendary bands were shot into the stars from these dive joints.

• The icons behind the icons

  Monday, June 20, 2016

  Action figures … that’s it. KISS had theirs, so did the A-Team; even a professor at the University of the Ozarks had a few of his academic colleagues turned into chiseled plastic replicas. Porsche should have their version with a gang of four guys ripe for immortalization. Isn’t time to finally put a name to the face staring at you from the garage?

• Tourist visa for a 911

  Monday, April 25, 2016

  ​It took six weeks. But approaching the port's storage yard rubbed out the wait. Now it was a matter of how she fared 5,573 miles of the Atlantic's temper-tethered deep in Pluto Leader's bowels. The call from the shipping company interrupted our conversation over café and cruasanes dulces. Crashing silverware on plates, laughter and Pichuco's "Barrio de Tango" muffled the sentences except for two words: vessel and arrived. We had work to do.

• Hobo soul: Skipping town in a 928 Weissach

  Friday, February 26, 2016

  ​There's a hobo in my soul that wants to skip town. He wakes me up just before dawn, before anybody, dragging me downstairs into the living room. "Dontcha turn nuthin' on…jus' set down and look out dat winda facing east," he tells me.

• Duncan’s first dance with Porsche

  Friday, December 18, 2015

  He threw two left hooks. A light one to the gut distracted me; then he slammed the big one upstairs. The kid got me good. "How many miles did you say it had?" I asked. "Like 19,200," he said. "And how old are you again?" "18."

• The dirty truth about Porsche ownership

  Friday, October 16, 2015

  "Jeez ... you drive that thing like a Passat." It took me about a second and a half to process that comment. My only reaction to it was why a Passat? "Well," I said "I bought the thing to drive it."

• The perfect entry-level Porsche

  Friday, July 31, 2015

  A revolutionary creation from the house of Porsche is about to challenge the way you think about the Marque. It repeats history by following the principles Porsche was founded on — it also redefines them. Provocative by nature, it shocks purists yet invites them with its benevolent appearance and familiar charm.

• 1966: A glimpse into Panorama’s past

  Monday, May 04, 2015

  It had been ages since I looked at any old issues of Panorama, but a lapse in time is a good thing; a greater appreciation of the content tends to happen with maturity. Something else occurred; I came away with a new found respect for our club’s rich history. This tends to happen when digging down to the roots, a deeper connection is felt because you “get it;” something quite difficult to do when the train was hopped in the middle or toward the back. What was club like back then? And Panorama, what was that like, how was it put together? How many pages? What sorts of topics did editors write about? These are the kinds of questions that flashed in my head the moment I opened the cover page of the January 1966 Panorama.

• Misprints, mismatches and missed connections in the world of Porsche

  Monday, February 23, 2015

  ​Three enthusiasts are looking for answers. You see Paul, Fernando and Robert each have a special Porsche with histories that a Certificate of Authenticity from Porsche can't seem to verify. In fact, these $100 birth certificates from Stuttgart stirred up more silt from the bottom of an already cloudy pond causing much confusion, disappointment, and above all else, intrigue.

• Daumen drücken: Exploring the history of the 928’s birth

  Monday, November 24, 2014

  I thrust myself from bed in a cold sweat. It was just before 4 a.m., Saturday morning no less. I was backed up against a wall in the car delivery hall of the Zuffenhausen plant with Dr. Ernst Fuhrmann jabbing his finger in my chest, while Herr Helmuth Bott and Herr Heinz Branitzki flanked him, asking me to make a decision — fast.

• The upside of a downside: Collecting vintage Porsches

  Monday, September 15, 2014

  Recently, I shared one of my favorite videos with some fellow Porsche owners. The video, called "The Great Putdown," is a short four-and-a-half-minute film shot in 8 mm by actor Peter Helm about he and two other guys having a laugh ripping up and down Mulholland Drive in the Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California in their vintage Ferraris during the late '60s.

• An unknown artist and his Porsche speakeasy

  Monday, July 14, 2014

  James Bielen is an old-school craftsman when it comes to Porsches. He's like an artist, preferring to work alone. He's too much of a perfectionist with incredible attention to detail to trust anyone else with his exclusive work. Volume isn't his game, and that's why he's word of mouth.

• We all speak one language — Porsche

  Monday, May 05, 2014

  I normally don't engage in posts on Facebook, but I made an exception the other night because it seemed like a provocative one. I went something like this, if I remember correctly: "What is your attitude toward non-928 owners who think anything other than a 911 is not a true Porsche? I like being different and feel that the 911 yuppies see their rides as status symbols. Your thoughts?" Now, I'm sure you've come across this sort of question before.

• The human element of Porsche buying

  Monday, March 10, 2014

  My wife has wanted a 968 Cabriolet since the day she saw her first one. Two days ago, I finally bought the car my wife has been lusting for; it was a complete surprise, she knew nothing of my plans about making good on her dream.

• Once Porsche passion grabs hold, it doesn’t let go

  Friday, January 03, 2014

  My wife and I were leaving our local Home Depot one morning in the 911, something magical happened. As I fired up the beastly flat-6, a man with two little boys in tow was walking behind us. Watching them in the rear-view mirror, I noticed one little boy had his neck craned 180 degrees as they walked away from us and closer to the store — he just wouldn't take his eyes off the car. I nudge my wife and said, "Honey, look, look, look! See that little guy? That's how it all starts."

• It takes 2 Porsches to tango

  Friday, September 20, 2013

  There was a point in my life when I wanted to chuck it all away and live a simple existence. I had lived on a 32 foot sailboat with the intent to circumnavigate the globe. I knew enough to hop freight trains to crisscross the country and see America through the back door. I though it Romantic but my wife didn't dig the risk of being an amputee travelling this way.