Cubic Volume Calculations

I just looked up the factory specs for the 1970 911T to see if by chance, the passenger compartment or trunk area cubic volume is listed. Before all car enthusiasts start laughing at me and shooting off comments, you should be assured that I knew this was a long shot before I even started. No one purchased a 911 in 1970, and I bet no one purchases one in 2025, by comparing its storage space to another brand of sports car and picking the one that has slightly more cargo room. These cars are for traveling through space in fun and fast ways, not carrying our stuff from point A to point B.

The results of my online search? Google read “cubic,” disregarded the rest of my query, and got excited. The screen showed the engine specs for my 911T: engine displacement (2,195 cc), torque (130 lb-ft @ 4200 rpm), and horsepower ( a very quaint 125 @ 5800 rpm). It told me the maximum speed of the Blue Car is 127 mph which some experiences on the straight, flat roads through the cornfields of our country’s heartland tell me may be off a bit.

There was no info about storage space for the front trunk area (I hate the word frunk; it doesn’t match the sleek design of the 911 so I don’t use it), much less the passenger compartment. So, I spent this morning calculating this space for myself.

Why my curiosity?

When I talked to car shippers, I asked what I could send over in the Blue Car when it makes its trans-Atlantic journey on a container ship. It turns out I can pack the car with pretty much anything legal, if I prepare a detailed list for customs. I didn’t ask this question with an eye toward heavy packing. I travel light. Very light. Three weeks in India? An airplane carry-on suitcase and small backpack. Weekend? A small backpack or packing cube and toiletry bag thrown in the car. If you have read my Blog article “Traveling with Ralph” on my website, you know how I got to this point very quickly after my first trip to Europe at twenty when I believed I NEEDED a lot to make my trip comfortable and happy (my resulting travels were anything but).

Knowing I can pack what I want is good news; most of my things for this months-long trip can go with the Blue Car and I can avoid taking extra baggage on my flight. I already know, from my US road trip, that clothes, rain/cold weather gear, my camera equipment, and hiking gear will all fit in the front trunk and that a bag with car parts and tools, including the fire extinguisher, will fit behind the driver’s seat on the floor and under the folded down back seat. So, that leaves all the space above the folded down rear seats, the floor behind the passenger seat, and the passenger seat and floor area free, which is how I like it.

Except…I found myself beginning to question a lifetime of light packing habits. I will have the Blue Car in Europe…my own personal little shipping container. And I was thinking not of what I can take with me on this road trip, but what I can bring back.

Cheese.

You read that right. I confess that I have been pondering the cheese-carrying capacity of the Blue Car since passing through the Midwest on my US Road trip. I got a call one night from my son Louis, who was studying in Missouri at the time. He had just read that Missouri is home to the United States Strategic Cheese Reserve. Yes, the US Government has a strategic stockpile of cheese. Ok, it’s mostly just plain cheddar, but still. There are approximately 1.4 billion pounds of cheese in converted limestone mines in Springfield, MO (I do think it is a missed opportunity – where is the ricotta, the colby, the brie?). In 1970, the government began buying milk and converting it to cheese to support farmers during a time of declining prices. Now, the reserve is seen as a safeguard in a time of emergency when food may be needed. All this cheese is stored at 36 degrees F to prevent spoilage and halt the aging process.

Louis shared this information with me because he knows how much his mother loves cheese. He has seen me unfailingly choose the cheeseboard instead of the chocolate cake for dessert. He has seen my eyes light up when a shop with the sign “Fromage” or “Formaggio” or just plain “Cheese” comes in sight while we are traveling. Coming back from a trip to Italy, I made his older brother carry a one-kilo wheel of my absolute favorite pecorino tartufo in his backpack. I was having a culinary love affair with the cheese man who sold me that wheel. He had me hooked, he had me swooning, the day he offered me a free taste of the runny, fragrant pecorino.

We laughed during that phone call and my son suggested he would go along for the ride if I planned a detour to visit the reserve but as far as I could tell, there is no visitor facility there. There are no little people shaped like cheese dancing in videos explaining the special cheddar making process and no trains taking cheese lovers like me deep into the mines to see the mind-boggling stacks of cheese. And of course, there is no store where visitors can stock up. After all, it can’t be a strategic reserve if the government sells it all. So, I passed on the detour, but our conversation got me thinking: how much cheese could I buy on that road trip? I made some rough calculations of the size of the Blue Car in my head because, well…because I was on my road trip and I had lots of free time to think, and because I was alone and there was no one to look at me like I was crazy.

It was all amusing but that’s as far as it got. Until I talked to potential shippers for the Blue Car two weeks ago and I started dreaming of the formaggio and fromage available to me while driving through Italy and France. Give me some credit for my show of geographical restraint—I didn’t add Danish Blue or Swiss to my thoughts. So, this morning, I took the Blue Car out of winter storage, which sounds more involved than it really was this year. I rolled back the cover, took the moth balls out of the engine compartment and everywhere else in the car, unplugged the trickle charger, did my annual little ritual plea to the Porsche gods, and started it up. This year, I didn’t even flood the engine. But I put the wash and vacuum on hold and grabbed my tape measure because I had this article to finish.

The result of my morning measuring? The total available storage space in the Blue Car passenger compartment is 51,489 cubic inches. In metric, that is 843,753 cubic centimeters (cc) – with cc being an abbreviation for “cheese capacity,” of course. I must be clear that this is a very rough calculation. In the interest of modesty and practicality, I deducted the entire space of the driver’s seat and area across the mid-section of the car at the shift and emergency brake. I am not about to reveal the cubic inches my body fills in space (that’s akin to a lady revealing her bra size) and besides, I need clear area to drive and to see out the windshield. I do have principles. Lap space doesn’t count for storage space: I will only drive with cheese on my lap if it is in small bite-size pieces and doesn’t obstruct my view.

From there, I kept it simple. I didn’t use a 3-D printer to construct cheese wheels and wedges to see what the car can actually hold, but I do know that a one-kilo wheel of cheese is approximately 366 cubic inches. Which means I can fit approximately 136 wheels of cheese in my beloved Blue Car! That is a lot of cheese.

Of course, this opens another whole line of inquiry. How will the cheese flavor change if left in the car in the heat for long periods of time? If it gets below freezing? Is there a European Union law that says I would be negligent, or even criminal, if I kept the cheese outside of its optimum storage temperature? Can I safely drive while distracted by delicious wafts of cheese? Could I safely carry a baguette on my lap or sticking out the window of the car without endangering myself or others on the road?

While I have had great fun doing these calculations and visualizing the Blue Car filled with cheese, I know I would never, ever have the discipline to not eat the cheese. Which brings me back full circle to storage capacity. I will eat whatever I purchase in the cheese kingdoms of Europe, perhaps saving just a little to sustain me while driving through cheese deserts (defined by me as locations where only supermarket cheese is available). And I think that is exactly what the Blue Car is designed for. There are no cargo specs for a reason; driving the Blue Car is about being nimble and in the moment. It’s not about all the baggage (of any kind) that we could take with us on our travels. It certainly isn’t about anything I could buy along the way. I hope to come back with exactly the same amount of tangible goods I arrive with, and a whole lot richer in experience. It’s about enjoying the moment. I have put my tape measure away and have sorted my priorities. I will enjoy my cheese in the moment. No holding back. I can already taste the pecorino, the runny brie, the cheeses I have yet to meet. I can’t wait.