Fred Paine’s first Porsche fit in the palm of his hand. His dad traveled for work and came home with Matchbox cars from airports. Fred and his brothers would crowd around the suitcase waiting to see what he brought back. “Me and my brothers were just fascinated by that,” he says. “And from there, it just grew.”
This one doesn’t fit in his hand. It fills the garage behind his house in Charlestown, West Virginia. A 1989 Porsche 911 Carrera in Cognac Brown Metallic, paint that shifts between copper and gold depending on the light. “It changes colors in every light,” Fred says. “It’s very unique.”
He’d wanted one for decades. In college, he and his friend Mike used to talk about how they’d both have Porsches someday. Mike bought this one in 1991, restored it, and kept it for years. “He called me one day and said, we sold our house, we’re moving to Vancouver, and you need to buy this car,” Fred says. “I told him I can’t buy this car, I just bought a 914. And he said, yes, you can. You’re going to buy this car.”
Fred did. He named it Remy, after Remy Martin. “It’s a beautiful color,” he says. “It changes colors in every light, so it’s very unique.” The interior is full tan leather with Alcantara inserts and black carpet. “Even the headliner is brown leather, which I’d never seen before. I didn’t know you could do that.” The 3.2-liter engine was rebuilt about ten thousand miles ago. “I’ve just been maintaining it, keeping it running. I have a good mechanic here who oversees everything. I do the oil changes and things like that, but I’m not a mechanic.”
The roads outside Charlestown aren’t perfect, and that’s part of the draw. “They literally lay the asphalt right over the dirt,” he says. “There’s a lot of bumps and humps and sweeping curves. It’s beautiful. When you get on it and accelerate, it sort of squats down and shoots out there. It feels like skiing, carving turns.”
His wife’s family has lived in their house for four generations. “I feel privileged to come here and to live here,” Fred says. “We have a two-car garage, and I keep the cars in that.”
He looks after the Porsche carefully, not for show, but for the sake of keeping it alive. “I’m the custodian for it,” he says. “My son will end up with this car, and hopefully it’ll stay in the family. His daughter’s three, and she talks about Porsches all the time.”
Fred smiles. “He didn’t have a chance. She didn’t either.”
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