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40 Years Behind the Wheel: The 5 Most Memorable Porsche 911s I’ve Driven It’s hard to believe it’s been four decades since I first got my hands on a Porsche 911. I remember the car vividly: a white 3.0-liter Carrera with black Fuchs alloys. It was narrow, lacked a rear wing, had no power steering, and came with a five-speed manual. It was arguably one of the purest 911s Porsche ever built. At the time, it was undeniably fast, but I also found it flawed. To be honest, I initially wondered what all the fuss was about. It didn’t help that I’d just tested a 944 Turbo in Australia. Back then, the 944 Turbo cost almost the same as the 911 Carrera, but it had more power, more torque, and was faster over any road with significantly less effort. After two days and 600 miles, I had to admit the truth in my review: “I know the 944 Turbo is the better car. But I also know that if it came to the crunch, if I were agonizing over how to spend my money, I’d take the 911 Carrera home.” It wasn’t an easy decision. I acknowledged, “The 944 Turbo is so competent, it can make a bad driver look good. Its soaring, searing performance is superbly counterbalanced by a chassis of astounding ability.” But the 911 just tugged at the heartstrings. “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.” Since then, I’ve driven dozens of 911s. With every evolution—except for the 964, which in the early 1990s worried me as potentially signaling the end of the 911 idea—I’ve marveled at how Porsche has polished its icon. They’ve managed to keep it relevant, exciting, and engaging. Four decades later, the 911 remains one of the few new cars I’d still spend my own hard-earned money on. Of all the 911 models I’ve driven over the past 40 years, these are the five that stand out the most. The Original Porsche 930 Turbo: A Widowmaker in Reality Back in the days when I drove that 3.0-liter Carrera, veteran road testers spoke of the original Porsche 911 Turbo in hushed, reverent tones. They described it as a car that demanded the utmost respect when driven with intent—a car whose binary boost levels made navigating the traditional 911 tightrope between corner-entry understeer and corner-exit oversteer a task requiring quick hands and nerves of steel. The 911 Turbo, they said, did not forgive mistakes; it did not tolerate sloppiness. It was a widowmaker. It took me a staggering 35 years to finally get behind the wheel of an original 911 Turbo and discover the truth for myself. The car was one of the first 30 production Turbos ever built, and it’s now part of Porsche’s mouthwatering classic fleet. Driving it, fully aware of its terrifying reputation, I took it very gently at first. I focused on testing the throttle response, monitoring the boost build-up, and watching the tachometer to build a mental map of the power and torque delivery. To my surprise, the engine was remarkably tractable. It was happy to hum along at 2,000 rpm in top gear, allowing the 911 Turbo to cruise effortlessly at 45 mph. However, once the engine hit 3,500 rpm, there was a noticeable surge in acceleration as the turbocharger forced 0.8 bar into the intake system. Yet, the sledgehammer blow to the shoulders that I’d expected never fully materialized. I soon learned the trick to driving the original 911 Turbo smoothly and quickly: keep the 3.0-liter flat-six spinning at 4,000 rpm or more to keep the turbocharger energized. Yes, there is significant turbo lag—very noticeable by modern standards—but it is manageable. Even after more than 50 years, this 911 remains an impressively fast car on the road. The first gear reaches 50 mph, the second reaches 90 mph, and the third reaches nearly 130 mph. This means you can devour most winding two-lane roads using only second and third gears. And while it might only have 256 hp, it weighs just 2,513 pounds, allowing it to handle corners with remarkable agility. Half a century ago, its performance would have seemed otherworldly. 993-Generation 911: The Last of the Air-Cooled Dynasty For Porsche purists, the 993 generation represents the end of an era—the last of the truly traditional 911s. This is the Porsche you drive with your knuckles occasionally brushing the dashboard, accompanied by the snarling metallic clatter of an air-cooled flat-six behind you. But back in 1994, when I first drove it, the 993 was the 911 of the future, the first in the lineage to challenge Isaac Newton’s laws of physics. Sure, the 993 still had that twitchy front end that demanded to be loaded on corner entry to hit the apex, and the rear end still wiggled through rough turns, but there was much more simpatico between them. The 993 still felt like a 911, but with a much better margin of error. The key to this improvement was a revolutionary new rear suspension. It replaced the old semi-trailing arms with a sophisticated multi-link setup that allowed for very slight initial toe-out on corner entry, followed by progressive toe-in as lateral loads increased. This virtually eliminated the camber change that had been the Achilles’ heel of 911s since 1963. This engineering breakthrough was combined with steering that was 16% quicker, with only 2.5 turns from lock to lock, making the front end feel much more decisive. Furthermore, a new six-speed manual transmission allowed drivers to make the most of the 3.6-liter flat-six. Thanks to lighter internals, a Bosch Motronic 2.0 engine management system, and a new dual exhaust, the engine revved harder to its 268-hp peak at 6,100 rpm. Compared to the 964 model it replaced, the 993 was a revelation. It wasn’t just the engineering upgrades, overseen by Ulrich Bez (who would later head Aston Martin): The exterior redesign, led by design chief Harm Lagaay, corrected visual problems with the 964, which Lagaay felt was too tall at the front and too low at the rear. The interior was cleaner, too, with fewer buttons randomly placed. The 993 was a 911 that was both faster and more forgiving than ever before. And, most importantly, it was far more desirable. 996-Generation 911: The Hero That Saved Porsche At the time, the decision was heresy. Porsche’s move to install a water-cooled flat-six in the tail of the 996-series 911 was, in the eyes of the purists, the automotive equivalent of Bob Dylan ditching his six-string acoustic guitar 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 car to me. It was the 911 that saved Porsche. Engineered and developed under the leadership of Porsche R&D chief Horst Marchart, the 996 was an exceptionally clever design. One of its smartest aspects was that it shared 38 percent of its components with an all-new, less expensive mid-engine roadster that the world would come to know as the Boxster. The iconic Porsche boss Wendelin Wiedeking understood that the Boxster was essential to give dealers something else to sell once the aging 928 and 968 models were discontinued. Design boss Lagaay famously quipped after the company unveiled the 996, “We did two cars for the price of one-and-a-half.” While the media was captivated by its relationship with the Boxster and the water-cooled engine, the 996’s real significance ran much deeper. In 1994, it took Porsche 130 hours to build a 993-series 911; the 996 took just 60 hours to assemble. The modern 911 had arrived. It was roomier and equipped with all the features expected of a late 20th-century sports car, yet it remained recognizably the iconic Porsche. Most importantly, it still drove like a 911—only better. Yes, there was a new veneer of sophistication to the way it performed its duties, but the 996 retained the delicious tactility and urgent responsiveness that had made the 91