Seinfeld, an automobile enthusiast and avid collector, owns a large Porsche collection.[77] He rented a hangar at the Santa Monica Airport, in Santa Monica, California, for an extended period of time during the 1990s for storage of some of the vehicles in the collection.[
citation needed]
One tally has Seinfeld owning 46 Porsches.
[78] Paul Bannister has written that Seinfeld's collection includes
Porsche 911s from various years,
10 Porsche Boxsters each painted a different color, and the famous 1955
Porsche 550 Spyder, the same model and pearl-grey color that actor
James Dean was driving when he crashed and died.
[79] The Discovery Channel television show
Chasing Classic Cars[
which?] claims that Seinfeld owns the first and last air-cooled Porsche 911s produced. The centerpiece is a $700,000
Porsche 959, one of only 337 built. He was not allowed to drive it, due to the fact that the car was "not
street-legal", which is because US emission and crash tests were never performed for the model since Porsche refused to donate four Porsche 959s for destruction tests. He imported the car "
for exhibition purposes", on the stipulation that it may never be driven on US roads.
[79] The car was made US street legal in 1999 under the
"Show and Display" federal law.
[80][81] Seinfeld wrote an article for the February 2004 issue of
Automobile, reviewing the
Porsche Carrera GT.
[82]