(FORTUNE Magazine) – So Dell Computer generates billions of dollars of wealth--where does it all go? One beneficiary is the Roger Beasley Porsche dealership in Austin, Texas. Its sales manager, Ken Keys, says Dell employees make up 15% to 20% of his clientele. Dell vice chairman Kevin Rollins is a regular customer, having purchased three cars in the past two years. When Rollins traded in his 1996 Targa for a 1997 Turbo S, he decided that the Turbo alone (which Keys says cost more than $150,000) was not sufficient. So he came back and also ordered a $40,000 Boxster for the family. Small change to Rollins, who owns Dell stock worth $36.4 million, not to mention millions more in options. Oh, his old Targa? Keys later sold that to yet another Dell employee.

It's not just employees and Austin businessmen who cash in. Ordinary investors in Texas and around the country are reaping Dell rewards, and whether they've become millionaires or merely rich, they're spreading the Dell gospel. Donnie Yeagin, 45, of Austin, wanted for years to buy Dell stock, but his brokers warned it was overvalued. "I finally bought Dell in 1996, and I'm extremely happy. When we had the October correction [Dell dropped to $36 a share], I told my mother-in-law to load up, and she is thrilled pink." Steve Mach, 28, of Houston, started investing in Dell stock and trading options on Dell in 1996. "I had no idea what I was in for," he says. "Life as a Dell shareholder has been very rewarding. It irritates me when analysts talk about Dell being overvalued because it's had such a run-up. That's irrelevant." Mach proudly keeps a Dell stock certificate on his wall.

Philip Treick, 34, of San Francisco, was a Dell customer back in the 1980s, ordering several computers and on one occasion dealing on the phone with Michael Dell himself. When Treick became an analyst at Transamerica Investment Services, the first stock he recommended was Dell Computer. "I was a young analyst, and I got shot down." Eventually, he did convince his fund manager; he also bought a position for himself, which has financed his lavish house outside San Francisco. "I was so excited about the prospects that I told all these people to buy Dell stock."

A college friend of Treick's heeded his advice and became a millionaire. "Phil called [in 1994] and said, 'if you don't buy the stock, I'm never talking to you again.' I bought 1,000 shares for $24." After stock splits, he now has 6,000 shares on a cost basis of $1.50, says the Florida resident, who has also donated thousands of shares to inner-city charities.

Perhaps the most devout Dell-vangelist is Kemble Matter, 49, a high school gym teacher in New Paltz, N.Y., who used to supplement his salary by restoring old houses. In 1996 he bought Dell on the advice of a former student, a broker. Netting a quick ten grand on a day trade of 1,750 shares, he paid off his credit-card debts and gave his wife a ring with five diamonds for their 25th anniversary. Nine months later he reloaded on Dell. His Dell investments have freed him to indulge his passions, which include furnishing his Tudor-style home and landscaping his 13 acres of English gardens with specially designed stone walls. Says Matter: "This whole thing has been a fantasy for me."

Last spring, Matter took his family on a dream vacation, an American road trip with stops in South Dakota's Badlands, Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. He told his wife that instead of driving their old car, he would rent a Cadillac for the trip: "We're going first class." Just before the trip, Dell stock jumped 34%. So Matter dropped the rental idea, gave his old Ford Taurus to his daughter, and bought himself the Cadillac Seville STS that he'd always wanted. "I drove all these clunkers for so long..."

When he's not teaching or coaching wrestling--as he still does after 27 years--Matter studies Michael Dell obsessively, collecting articles in what he calls his Dell bibles. "When I see Michael on TV, I tape him." He talks of Dell's look of pride, his little sneer, the glimmer in his eye. Matter recalls watching an interview after last October's crash; the expression on Dell's face spoke to him, saying, "I hope you're sticking with me. You'll be sorry if you sell." Matter has persuaded 70 to 80 people to buy the stock, including 13 teachers and four students at his school. "I know you're not supposed to fall in love with a stock," he says, "much less with a man, but I am in love with the stock, the man, and the company." Whatever you say, coach.

--Jeanne Lee