David Gardner with his hand-controlled Porsche 996 Tiptronic. Photo courtesy Raymond Thompson Jr., WVU When I bought our 1991 Alfa Romeo S4 Spider in February 2022, the seller claimed it had 21,917 original miles. I had no reason to doubt that, as when the car arrived it looked like it had been well taken care of. Of course, the A/C wasn’t blowing cold, but it “only needed a refresh” — and a new $1,500 compressor. Sometime later, I noticed the top of the dash had been re-covered, which made me start to wonder. We pulled a CARFAX report, which thankfully verified […]
David Gardner with his hand-controlled Porsche 996 Tiptronic. Photo courtesy Raymond Thompson Jr., WVU
When I bought our 1991 Alfa Romeo S4 Spider in February 2022, the seller claimed it had 21,917 original miles. I had no reason to doubt that, as when the car arrived it looked like it had been well taken care of.
Of course, the A/C wasn’t blowing cold, but it “only needed a refresh” — and a new $1,500 compressor.
Sometime later, I noticed the top of the dash had been re-covered, which made me start to wonder. We pulled a CARFAX report, which thankfully verified the mileage.
Racer
However, some additional internet sleuthing on the VIN eventually led us to a previous owner, David Gardner. We found an article about him published in WVU Magazine, “Back on Track: Racer Loses His Legs But Not His Drive.”
It turns out David was a longtime sports-car owner and SCM subscriber. He began SCCA racing in 1981 and boasted an impressive resume including national-level wins. But on June 13, 1999, he was piloting his Swift DB1 Formula Ford on the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, OH, when he smashed into the rear of another car at around 100 mph.
It took 30 minutes for the crew to extricate him from the mangled wreckage. He was flown to a Cleveland hospital and died twice — first in the helicopter and then in the hospital. His many injuries necessitated the amputation of both his legs. David was 45 years old.
He learned to walk on prosthetics and returned to work the next year as the Director of Human Resources for Global Operations with Philips Medical Systems in Cleveland.
Determined to have some fun driving again, he told me he picked out the automatic Alfa Spider and had hand-controls fitted to it.
He bought it because it was uncommon — not a Miata. Getting into it with prosthetics was a challenge, but one worth figuring out.
“It was stylish and I got compliments on it,” he said. “I enjoyed having the top down on a sunny day.”
Porsche guy
Gardner has been a member of the Porsche Club of America for 47 years. He discovered he could track his 996 Tiptronic once it was fitted with hand controls. In 2013, with the encouragement of his wife, Diane, he attended a track day back at Mid-Ohio, where he had crashed. This was followed by several years of Porsche Club High Performance Driver Education (HPDE) events.
“While the GT3s and such would blow by me on the straights, with careful driving I could catch some of the cars now and then in the twisties, surprising their drivers,” he said. “They always looked startled when they saw my hand-control setup in the pits.”
He told me he finally stopped doing these track events because “It wasn’t really racing. It was more like a high-speed autocross. And I got tired of seeing drivers taking the wrong lines and missing apexes and being saved by their electronic nanny-aids.”
Today, David’s garage includes a Porsche 993 S, a Jaguar XK, a Ferrari 360 and an Aston Martin V8 Vantage. His daily driver is a Range Rover. All but the Aston are fitted with hand controls, though it is slated to get a set as well.
“Buy It Now”
After a dozen years of ownership, David decided it was time to move on from his Alfa. The S4 eventually found its way to a seller on eBay and then to me.
I will always remember the exact moment I pressed the “Buy It Now” button. The SCM 1970 Citroën DS21 had died, at dusk, on the very busy Interstate 84 in the Columbia Gorge near the on-ramp from the Bridge of the Gods. We later discovered a bit of dirt had clogged the main carburetor jet.
My son Bradley and I, along with his Scottie dog Bella, were sitting on the shoulder of the freeway, one taillight on the DS blinking weakly, as cars rushed by us at 90 mph. I was terrified for the three of us. Luckily, a call to AAA resulted in a roll-back truck getting to us in a record-breaking 15 minutes. It was as the Citroën was being pulled to safety on the truck bed that I bought the Alfa.
I acquired the car to enhance my mobility, though in a different way than it did for David. But the S4 is in my life for many of the same reasons it entered his.
No one will ever accuse it of being a high-performance sports car or a hotbed of modern technology. The fact that the power windows actually work (now that both regulators have been replaced with upgraded ones) continues to surprise and even amaze me.
Although with my stroke I had lost the ability to shift a manual, I still had the snake-and-cross in my blood. Pininfarina’s restyle of the S4 was brilliantly executed, and the car has a timeless look. Driving it feels like an event, not just transportation.
And it’s not a Miata.
Leave a Reply