FULL – The Bold and the Beautiful 6/18/2026 | B&B Spoilers Thursday, June 18

The Definitive All-Time Top 5 Porsche 911s You Need to Know About 10 Years in the Driver’s Seat: My All-Time Favorites from the Stuttgart Icon Tick-tock. Can you believe it’s already been 40 years since I first got behind the wheel of a Porsche 911? I remember the car vividly: a white 3.0-liter Carrera with black Fuchs alloys. It was pure, raw 911—narrow body, no rear wing, no power steering, and a five-speed manual gearbox. It was fast, sure, but also deeply flawed. At the time, I’d just tested a 944 Turbo that cost almost the same in Australia, and honestly, the 944 was faster and easier to drive. But something about the 911 just got under my skin. As I wrote back then, “After two days and 600 miles, I know the 944 Turbo is the better car. But if I had to choose, I’d take the 911 Carrera home.” The 944 was competent; it made a bad driver look good. But the 911 demanded respect. It was imperfect, a relic from a different era with different values. It wasn’t for everyone, but that’s precisely why I loved it. Over the past four decades, I’ve driven countless Porsche 911s, and with every iteration (except perhaps the 964, which once made me wonder if the 911 idea had run its course), I’ve marveled at how Porsche has refined this icon. It’s still relevant, exciting, and engaging. After 40 years, it’s one of the few new cars I’d still spend my own money on. Out of all the 911 models I’ve experienced, these five truly stand out. The Original 911 Turbo (930): The Widowmaker Legend Back in the day, veteran road testers spoke of the original Porsche 930 Turbo in hushed, awed tones. They called it a “widowmaker,” a car that demanded absolute respect at the limit. It was a beast with binary boost, requiring quick hands and big balls to navigate the tightrope between corner-entry understeer and corner-exit oversteer. It didn’t tolerate mistakes. It took me 35 years to find out if the rumors were true. I finally got behind the wheel of one of the first 30 production 930 Turbos ever built, now part of Porsche’s breathtaking classic fleet. Aware of its fearsome reputation, I took it incredibly easy at first, teasing the throttle, feeling the boost, and trying to map the power delivery. What surprised me? The engine was remarkably tractable. At 2,000 rpm in top gear, it hummed along at 45 mph like a tame kitten. But once the revs hit 3,500 rpm, you felt a noticeable surge as the turbocharger kicked in at 0.8 bar. It wasn’t the sledgehammer I expected, but it was definitely there. The trick to driving a classic 911 Turbo smoothly is keeping the 3.0-liter flat-six spinning at 4,000 rpm or more to keep the turbo pressurized. Yes, there’s turbo lag—very noticeable by modern standards—but it’s manageable. Even today, this 911 is brutally fast on the road. First gear hits 50 mph, second tops out at 90 mph, and third rockets to almost 130 mph. You can tear up any winding two-lane using just second and third gear. And while it only makes 256 hp, it weighs just 2,513 pounds, making it incredibly nimble through corners. Half a century later, this car still feels otherworldly. 993-Generation 911: The Last of the Real Ones? For the purists among us, the 993 is the last true 911. It’s the car you drive with your knuckles barely grazing the dash, listening to the snarling, metallic clatter of an air-cooled flat-six behind you. But when I first drove it in 1994, the 993 was the 911 of the future. It was the first to challenge Isaac Newton. While it still had that pat-pat-pattery front end that required careful loading on corner entry and a rear end that rhumbaed through the rough stuff, the connection between the front and rear was much better. The 993 still felt like a 911, but within a much tighter margin of error. The star of the show was the new rear suspension, replacing the old semi-trailing arms with a modern multilink setup. It allowed for slight initial toe-out on corner entry and progressive toe-in as loads increased, drastically reducing the camber change that had plagued 911s since 1963. This was combined with a new six-speed manual transmission that made the most of the 3.6-liter flat-six, which revved harder to its 268-hp peak at 6,100 rpm. Thanks to lighter internals, Bosch Motronic 2.0 engine management, and a dual exhaust system, it was a revelation compared to the 964 it replaced. Under Ulrich Bez (who later led Aston Martin), the 993 wasn’t just better engineered; it looked better too. Harm Lagaay, the design chief, corrected the visual flaws of the 964, which he thought was too tall at the front and too low at the rear. The interior was cleaner, with fewer buttons scattered around. The 993 was faster, more forgiving, and, most importantly, more desirable than ever. It’s a German sports car that defines an era. 996-Generation 911: The One That Saved Porsche When Porsche decided to put a water-cooled flat-six in the tail of the 996-series 911, it was heresy to the purists. It was the automotive equivalent of Bob Dylan ditching his acoustic guitar for an electric one at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. But the 996, the first clean-sheet redesign of Porsche’s legendary sports car in 34 years, was a hero in my book. It was the 911 that saved Porsche. Engineered and developed under R&D chief Horst Marchart, the 996 was brilliantly clever. It shared 38 percent of its parts with an all-new, more affordable mid-engine roadster: the Boxster. Iconoclastic CEO Wendelin Weideking knew the Boxster was essential to keep dealers selling when the aging 928 and 968 models retired. As design boss Lagaay famously said, “We built two cars for the price of one-and-a-half.” While everyone focused on the water-cooled engine and its Boxster connection, the 996’s real story ran deeper. In 1994, it took 130 hours to build a 993-series 911; the 996 took only 60 hours. The modern Porsche 911 had arrived. It was roomier, packed with the features of a late-20th-century sports car, but still recognizably a 911. Crucially, it drove like a 911—only better. There was a new veneer of sophistication, but the 996 retained the tactility and urgent response that made the 911 unique. Along with the original Boxster, it pulled Porsche back from the brink of extinction. For sheer Porsche value and driving DNA, the 996 is hard to beat. 991.2-Generation 911 Carrera: Pure Heart, No Nonsense Out of all the 911s I’ve driven, it was a base 991.2 Carrera that truly stole my heart. And judging by the feedback from my colleagues at the time, it stole everyone else’s too. Most press fleets are loaded with high-spec performance cars, loaded with options as if we’re impressed by such things. So when Porsche Cars North America included a base 911 Carrera in the launch lineup for the 991.2 models in 2017, it seemed like a brave move. In reality, it was inspired. The 991.2 introduced a new 3.4-liter turbocharged engine, offering 370 hp in the base model or 420 hp in the Carrera S. Even in base trim, it delivered an incredibly broad torque band and impressive efficiency. This Carrera also proved that even with the base wheel