MEMBER PROFILE

VIR Members Tanya & Henning Wulff

What year did you join the PCA? 2005

Which Porsche do you own? 2013 Boxster S and a 2010 GT3

Where are you from? Tanya and I both grew up in Alberta, then spent our working lives in Vancouver.

What line of work are you in? I am a retired architect and photographer, Tanya is a retired psychiatrist.

Next upgrade? The Boxster GTS 4.0 looks good, but I’m not sure I’d have more fun than in the 2013 Boxster S.

Favourite car adventure? While driving in the Ukraine, I got stopped by a cop. I don’t speak Ukrainian, and he didn’t speak anything I could deal with. Through ’sign language’, grunts and facial contortions, I understood that I had crossed solid line when I shouldn’t have, even though it was inscrutably marked, and agreed that I had done wrong. He showed me an A3 sized form, with about a hundred fields to be filled in and made it plain that this was a lot of work that he’d rather not do. He also communicated that I would then have to stay in the nearest town overnight to see the official in charge the next day. We agreed on a $10 payoff, and both went on our way smiling.

Any fun cars growing up? Tanya and my first joint purchase (about a year before we actually got married) was a Datsun 240Z. We ordered it before the first one arrived in Edmonton, and wound up with the 3rd one in Alberta. It had been designed and to some degree developed for California, and the engine came with first generation emission controls which throttled it to 125hp. The first half year the cars that came into Canada didn’t have emission controls, and made somewhere close to 200hp. We drove many times Edmonton to Jasper where I was on the Ski Patrol, leaving early Saturday morning to get to Marmot Basin by 6:30am to be ready at the bottom of the lift by 7 in time to be first up the hill. At night the only police on the highway were in Edson at a known coffee shop. I had mounted Cessna landing lights below and back of the bumper. I could get someone to dim their lights 2 miles down the road. More importantly, I could see caribou and coyotes on the highway from far away. The car had a top speed

above 135mph (225kph), verified on the Edmonton track on which CanAm races were run, which was very fast for 1970. To get to Jasper by 6:30am we left Edmonton by 4:00.

Favourite vacation destination? Anywhere. The last 4 months before Covid-19 included Australia, New Zealand, Bora Bora, Barbados, Guyana and Suriname. All fantastic. We’ve driven on 5 of the continents in all sorts of cars, and it’s all been great. Some of the cars, not so great but at least interesting.

What drew you to Porsche? My dad was very interested in cars and bought a 1959 Porsche 356 on European delivery, was a PCA member and took part in a Porsche Parade in Aspen, Colorado in 1960. Unfortunately he died in a car crash a few years later. In spite of my interest in Porsches, out of respect for my mom’s feelings I didn’t buy a Porsche myself until she was bed bound. Tanya, who was also very interested in cars, bought me a 2004 GT3 for my 60th birthday in 2005, getting me my dream car without ever discussing it with me or knowing that that was it.

What region were you in when you joined PCA (VIR didn’t come into existence until 1996)? I first joined Canada West Region in 2005, and am still a member there as well.

What car do you have now, and how do you mostly use it? The Boxster is the last of the line before the turbo everything era kicked in. It gets used when the top is better put down, when a great drive along beautiful 2 lane roads are available that don’t need as much speed to be enjoyed. The GT3 is used when the focus is more on the driving than the scenery and when I want to feel the car more. It’s the last GT3 with the Mezger engine, hydraulic steering, relatively few electronics and of course, it has a 6 speed. The Boxster also has a 6 speed, although after some years of ownership I now realize it would do just as well with a PDK.

What has kept you in the club? People; friends we’ve made

What was your first car? A 1967 VW 1500 Beetle, which cost $1500 Cdn cash at a dealer in Hamburg, Germany. It was the first car I drove around the Nürburgring.

What's been your favourite club experience so far? Hard to pick a favourite: Black Rock, Gold River, Cars & Coffee; they’re all worthwhile and have their highlights. Track days are great, but the best times are with lots of friends. Best driving experience – ever? One of the best: driving the Jasper-Banff highway on a gorgeous warm sunny day in my first Boxster, a 2006.

Right up there with the least pleasant: Driving highway 11 through Northern Ontario in mid-May 2019 after having bought our 2013 Boxster S from a fellow in Ottawa. The tires were cracked and nearly bald, and it started snowing. And on this awful, boring and never ending road the speed limit was 90, which the kind officer pointed out to me. He let me off since it was my first day in the car.

Editor—Many thanks to Henning and Tanya for their interesting Member Profile. I have previously used Henning’s photos in Porscher especially from Black Rock.