Story and photos by Zach Mayne

New Zealand Porsche enthusiast James Manning’s car destiny was sealed when he was a kid. “My late father was a car collector, having owned a variety of rare and collectible cars,” he tells us. “I grew up learning to drive in a Ford XY GTHO Phase III Falcon, which is one of the most expensive and collectible Australian cars.”

With those kind of formative experiences when he was a child, it’s not surprising that Manning has gone on to become just as much of a gearhead as his father was, even rebuilding his dad's old Falcon after he had passed away. Despite his father’s appreciation of a wide range of vehicles, Manning has had “a love of Porsches from a very early age.” But it wasn’t 2009 that he managed to get his hands on his first Porsche, which was a brand new second generation 997 Carrera S. “In 2007 I tried to buy one, however the Porsche dealer wouldn’t let me take the car for a test drive, so I bought a BMW M3.” Not a bad alternative to the Porsche, but it was still no 911.