BRING BACK THE 90’S!

It should come as no surprise that we at Modern Aircooled keep one foot firmly planted in the past, C’mon, it's in the name! While our mission is to perfect and preserve all Porsche products new and old, we reserve the biggest soft spot for the classics. What might be slightly more surprising though, is that one decade really stands above the rest for Modern Aircooled and its staff, the 90’s!

Modern Aircooled is a shop with decades of combined experience working on classic Porsches and other vintage vehicles, but most of us fondly remember the 90’s as the period of our youth. The years of automotive posters on the walls, and schoolyard brawls over who’s dad/uncle/neighbour had the coolest cars. So many of us remember that period where cars were a childhood dream, a trading card game of specs in magazines, and an endless imagination of ‘one day I will own a…’ virtual garages. Those were the formative years, cementing a lifetime of passion, leading us into temptation and down the road to becoming custodians of those vehicles today. 

It is with these rose coloured glasses that we proudly declare the 90’s to have been a high water mark for Porsche and many other makes. The later editions of the 964 chassis represented the pinnacle of G body evolution, which made way for the 993, a model that bookmarked the end of 60+ years of aircooled engine development with the 993 RS, GT2, and Turbo S as halo cars. We saw the 928 finally become an autobahn monster with the GTS, and the introduction of variocam in the 968. We saw the introduction of the venerable Mezger motor in the 993 GT1 as it dominated Le Mans and propelled that aircooled legacy onwards into another generation, only now with watercooled heads. Finally, the 90’s closed with the introduction of the Boxster, and the new 996, two cars that faced down the millennium bug, saved the company's finances, and set the tone for the noughties to come. 

The constant technical evolution of the decade was dressed in an exceptional flourish of colour. The PTS gold rush of cars today is a direct throwback to the palette and liveries available back then. Tech booms in Japan and America led ever wealthier clients to request ever louder combinations of ever more special editions. Their lack of taste then, is exceptionally cool now. 

It’s a harsh reality that the 90’s are approaching their 40’s now, and they're the youngest of the many classics Modern Aircooled cares for. Earlier in the year we sat down, faced the music and changed the way we do things. We’ve come to terms with the fact that the cars of our youth are no longer youthful and require ever more extensive and specific care. Factory maintenance schedules are replaced by comprehensive inspections and tailored repairs that reflect the passing of 40 years on the road. No longer is it adequate to go by the book, and instead each and every vehicle is now unique and treated as such. So what did we decide to do?

We’re BRINGING BACK THE 90’S! With shop labour rates hovering around the $200/hour mark, we know that taking the extra time required to properly fix each classic vehicle would only result in crippling bills and frustration. Instead, we’ve audited our classic work and compared the book times billed, to actual time worked, and found a much better way. As of early 2025, for classic vehicles twenty years and older, we’ve thrown out the book and more than halved our labour rate. We have calculated that billing for the actual time spent at this much lower rate would, for most classic jobs, allow us to do our best work without any pressure from the clock. Allow us to tailor our repairs to exactly what the car needs instead of what the book calls for, and in most cases result in a slightly lower repair bill for owners. 

Moving to this new system gives Modern Aircooled strong advantages over other shops in these key areas: 

• We are able to fully and comprehensively address the needs of the vehicle as a whole and work efficiently to address any additional needs discovered during repair. 

• We are able to more accurately bill for actual work done, and generally lower repair costs per job. 

• We are able to more accurately document the work we’re doing, and the time each item takes on the invoice, allowing owners to see where attention was most needed. 

• We are able to take the time needed on each item, and not ‘race the clock’, reducing any incentive to rush work. 

This new billing system has already shown results in this first half of 2025, and we have expanded it to include any and all aftermarket and performance work, along with custom fabrication and advanced diagnosis on newer vehicles. 

Modern Aircooled continues to work in the shop, but also behind the scenes to ensure that we’re always doing the best we can to provide clarity, understanding, and value to our clients, on top of the very best Porsche repairs possible. 

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All Images courtesy of Kevin McCauley, Capturing the Machine,

Shot for: Rennsport Classics: www.rennsportclassic.com

*all information current as of Q1 2025, Pricing subject to change at any time.