The Pantheon of Precision: A Lifetime of Love Affair with the Porsche 911
It’s hard to believe nearly four decades have passed since I first got behind the wheel of a Porsche 911. I recall it vividly: a white 3.0-liter Carrera with its iconic black Fuchs wheels, a narrow body, no rear wing, no power steering, and a five-speed manual transmission. At the time, in my native Australia, this pure breed of Porsche was priced almost identically to a 944 Turbo. The 944, in hindsight, was a formidable competitor with more power and torque, easily besting the Carrera on any winding Australian road with significantly less effort. Yet, despite its raw edges and technical shortcomings, I fell head over heels for the 911.
In my review back then, I declared, “After two days and 600 miles, I’m certain. I know the 944 Turbo is the better car. But I also know that if it came to the crunch, that if it were me agonizing over how to spend my money, I’d take the 911 Carrera home.” That decision wasn’t easy. “The 944 Turbo is so competent, it can make a bad driver look good,” I wrote. “Its soaring, searing performance is superbly counterbalanced by a chassis of astounding ability.” But the 911 tugged at the emotions. “The gloriously imperfect 911 Carrera is a sports car of a different age and reflects different values. It’s not tailored to meet the needs of most drivers. It demands understanding and respect. That’s why I’d take it home.”
Over the past forty years, I’ve piloted countless iterations of the 911. With every evolution—barring the 964, which in the early 1990s I feared might spell the end of the 911 concept—I have been astonished by Porsche’s relentless innovation. They have polished their icon to a mirror shine, ensuring it remains relevant, exciting, and engaging. Even now, four decades after that first exhilarating drive, the 911 remains one of the few new cars on which I would willingly spend my own hard-earned dollars. Out of all the Porsches I’ve driven over the years, these are the five that remain etched in my memory.
The King of the Wild Frontier: The Original 911 Turbo
Back in the day, the veteran road-test journalists spoke in hushed, reverent tones about the original Porsche 911 Turbo. They described it as a beast that demanded the utmost respect when driven with intent—a car whose binary boost states turned the traditional 911 tightrope walk between corner-entry understeer and corner-exit oversteer into a high-stakes dance requiring lightning-fast hands and nerve. The 911 Turbo did not forgive mistakes; it tolerated no sloppiness. Whispers of it being a “widowmaker” were common. It took me a staggering 35 years to finally get behind the wheel of an original 911 Turbo and uncover the truth for myself.
The specimen I drove was one of the first 30 production Turbos ever built, now proudly preserved in Porsche’s breathtaking classic collection. Aware of its fearsome reputation, I took it incredibly easy at first, playing with the throttle, observing the boost engage, and watching the tachometer, trying to build a mental map of its power and torque curves. The engine proved remarkably tractable, happy to hum along at 2,000 rpm in top gear, allowing the 911 Turbo to cruise along at a sedate 45 mph. However, once the engine hit 3,500 rpm, a palpable surge of acceleration kicked in as the turbocharger forced 0.8 bar of pressure into the induction system. To my surprise, the sledgehammer blow between the shoulder blades I had anticipated never materialized.
I quickly discovered the trick to smooth yet exhilarating progress in the original 911 Turbo was to keep the 3.0-liter flat-six spinning at 4,000 rpm or higher to keep the turbocharger energized. Yes, there is turbo lag—very noticeable lag by today’s standards—but it’s surprisingly manageable. Even after more than 50 years, this 911 remains an incredibly fast car on the road. First gear tops out at 50 mph, second at 90 mph, and third at almost 130 mph, meaning it can devour most winding back roads using only second and third gears. And while it boasts a mere 256 horsepower, its weight of just 2,513 pounds allows it to dance into and out of corners effortlessly. Half a century ago, its performance would have seemed truly otherworldly.
The Last of the True Breed: The 993-Generation Porsche 911
For the purists among us, the 993-generation Porsche 911 is the end of the line, the last of the real 911s. It’s the car you drive with your knuckles grazing the dash and the snarling, metallic symphony of an air-cooled flat-six singing behind your head. But back in 1994, when I first tested it, the 993 was the future. It was the first in the lineage to challenge Isaac Newton’s laws of physics. Of course, the 993 still featured that iconic “pat-pat-pattery” front end that demanded to be loaded on corner entry to ensure you hit the apex, and the rear end still danced through the rougher turns, but there was a newfound synergy between them. The 993 still did 911 things, but within a much safer margin.
Central to this evolution was a revolutionary rear suspension. It replaced the dated semi-trailing arms with a sophisticated new multilink setup. This allowed for minute initial toe-out on corner entry and progressive toe-in as lateral loads increased, all while minimizing the camber change that had plagued 911s since their introduction in 1963. This was combined with a new six-speed manual transmission that made the most of the 3.6-liter flat-six engine, which now zinged harder to its 268-hp peak at 6,100 rpm, thanks to lighter internals, a Bosch Motronic 2.0 engine management system, and a new dual-exhaust setup.
Compared to the 964 model it replaced, the 993 was nothing short of a revelation. It wasn’t just the engineering upgrades, developed under the leadership of Ulrich Bez (who later headed Aston Martin): The exterior redesign, led by design chief Harm Lagaay, corrected the visual issues of the 964, which Lagaay felt was too tall at the front and too raked at the rear. The interior was cleaner, too, with a more intuitive arrangement of buttons. The 993 was a 911 that was faster and more forgiving than ever before. And, most importantly, it was more desirable, too. It was a swan song for the air-cooled era that remains legendary to this day.
The Hero That Saved an Icon: The 996-Generation Porsche 911
At the time, it felt like heresy. Porsche’s decision to install a water-cooled flat-six in the tail of the 996-series 911 was, to the aficionados, the automotive equivalent of Bob Dylan trading his acoustic six-string for a Fender Stratocaster at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. But the 996, the first clean-sheet redesign of Porsche’s indefatigable sports car in 34 years, was a hero in my eyes. It was the 911 that saved Porsche.
Engineered and developed under the direction of Porsche R&D chief Horst Marchart, the 996 was a stroke of genius, not least because it shared 38% of its components with an all-new, less expensive mid-engine roadster the world would come to know as the Boxster. The iconoclastic Porsche boss Wendelin Weideking understood that the Boxster was essential to give dealers something else to sell once the aging 928 and 968 models were phased out. “We did two cars for the price of one-and-a-half,” design boss Lagaay remarked with a smile after the company unveiled the 996.
But while the media focused on its relationship with the Boxster and the water-cooled engine, the 996’s true story ran much deeper. In 1994, it took Porsche 130 hours to build a 993-series 911; the 996 took only 60 hours. The modern 911 had arrived: roomier and equipped with all the features expected of a late 20th-century sports car, yet still unmistakably Porsche’s icon. Most importantly, it still drove like a 911. Only better. Yes, there was a new veneer of sophistication in the way it executed its business, but the 996 retained the delicious tactility and urgent response that had made the 911 a sports car like no other. And alongside the original Boxster, it saved Porsche from the brink of extinction.
The Sweetest Temptation:
