Electra resigns from Forester, officially joining Hope and Zende’s team The Bold and The Beautiful

5 Porsches That Changed Me: My Personal Evolution Through Forty Years of 911 Obsession It’s hard to believe it’s been four decades since I first got behind the wheel of a Porsche 911. My debut ride was a white, narrow-bodied 3.0-liter Carrera with black Fuchs wheels and a five-speed manual. No power steering, no rear wing—it was as pure as Porsche has ever made them. Fast, yes, but flawed. I remember it vividly, especially since I drove it back-to-back with a 944 Turbo. In my native Australia, they cost about the same, and the 944 had more power, more torque, and was effortlessly quicker on any road. Yet, I fell for the 911 anyway. As I put it in my notes back then: “After two days and 600 miles, I know the 944 Turbo is the better car. But if I were agonizing over my money, I’d take the 911 Carrera home.” The 944 was just too competent, making even bad drivers look good. But the 911… that was something different. “The gloriously imperfect 911 Carrera is a sports car of a different age and reflects different values,” I wrote. “It’s not tailored to meet the needs of most drivers. It demands understanding and respect. That’s why I’d take it home.” In the 40 years since, I’ve driven dozens of 911s. Every generation—with the exception of the 964, which in the early ‘90s worried me that the 911 concept might be past its prime—has astonished me with how Porsche has polished its icon, keeping it relevant, exciting, and engaging. Four decades later, it remains one of the few new cars I’d still spend my own hard-earned money on. Out of all the 911s I’ve driven over the past 40 years, these are the five that stand out the most. The Original 911 Turbo: Widowmaker or Masterpiece? Back when I first drove the 3.0-liter Carrera, veteran road-test journalists spoke of the original Porsche 911 Turbo in hushed, reverent tones. It was, they said, a car that demanded absolute respect when driven hard. A car whose binary boost stages made the traditional 911 tightrope walk between corner-entry understeer and corner-exit oversteer a job that required quick hands and bigger cojones. The original 911 Turbo didn’t forgive mistakes and didn’t tolerate sloppiness. It was, they whispered, a widowmaker. It took me 35 years to get behind the wheel of an original 911 Turbo to find out if the legend was true. The car was one of the first 30 production Turbos ever built, now part of Porsche’s jaw-dropping classic fleet. Aware of its fearsome reputation, I drove very cautiously at first, testing the throttle, watching the boost come in and feeling the tach, trying to build a mental map of the power and torque curves. The engine was remarkably manageable—happy to chug along at 2,000 rpm in top gear, cruising at 45 mph. Once the engine hit 3,500 rpm, however, there was a noticeable surge of acceleration as the turbocharger forced 0.8 bar of boost into the intake. But that sledgehammer blow to the shoulders I expected never materialized. I quickly learned the trick to smooth, fast progress in the original 911 Turbo was to keep the 3.0-liter flat-six spinning at 4,000 rpm or more to keep the turbocharger energized. Yes, there’s turbo lag—very noticeable by modern standards—but it’s manageable. Even more than 50 years old, this 911 is still staggeringly fast on the road. First gear tops out at 50 mph, second at 90 mph, and third hits nearly 130 mph. That means you can obliterate most winding back roads using only second and third gear. And while it might only have 256 hp, it weighs just 2,513 pounds, allowing it to get in and out of corners with agility. Half a century ago, its performance would have seemed otherworldly. Today, it’s a pure, unadulterated thrill. The 993-Generation: The Last Air-Cooled Legend For Porsche purists, the 993 is the end of an era. It’s the last of the “real” 911s—the one you drive with your knuckles grazing the dash, the snarling metallic clatter of an air-cooled flat-six providing the soundtrack. But back in 1994, when I first drove it, the 993 was the 911 of the future. It was the first model that dared to challenge Isaac Newton’s laws of physics. Oh, sure, the 993 still had that distinctive “pat-pat-pattery” front end that needed loading on corner entry to ensure you hit the apex, and the rear end still rhumbed through rougher turns, but the balance had dramatically improved. The 993 was undeniably a 911, but within a much more refined margin for error. The game-changer was a new rear suspension that replaced the archaic semi-trailing arms of the past with a modern multilink setup. This allowed for a very slight initial toe-out on corner entry, which then progressive-ly became toe-in as lateral loads increased. This crucial adjustment significantly reduced the camber change that had been the Achilles’ heel of the 911 since its introduction in 1963. Combined with a new six-speed manual transmission that was 16% quicker than its predecessor (at 2.5 turns lock-to-lock), the front end felt far more decisive. The 3.6-liter flat-six also zinged harder, hitting its 268 hp peak at 6,100 rpm thanks to lighter internals, Bosch Motronic 2.0 engine management, and a new dual-exhaust system. Compared to the 964 model it replaced, the 993 was a revelation. Ulrich Bez (later the CEO of Aston Martin) led the engineering, and Harm Lagaay (Porsche’s design chief) executed the exterior redesign, correcting visual issues he found with the 964, which he considered too tall at the front and too squat at the rear. The interior was cleaner, too, with fewer buttons scattered randomly. The 993 was faster, more forgiving, and most importantly, more desirable than ever before. It truly solidified the 911’s legacy. The 996-Generation: The Water-Cooled Revolution That Saved Porsche To the aficionados of the time, Porsche’s decision to install a water-cooled flat-six in the tail of the 996-series 911 was automotive heresy. It was the equivalent of Bob Dylan ditching his acoustic guitar for a Fender Strat 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 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 clever piece of engineering. Its brilliance stemmed from the fact that it shared 38% of its parts with an entirely new, less expensive mid-engine roadster the world would soon know as the Boxster. Iconoclastic Porsche boss Wendelin Weideking knew the Boxster was the missing piece needed to give dealers something else to sell once the aging 928 and 968 models were discontinued. “We did two cars for the price of one-and-a-half,” design boss Lagaay later remarked with a smile after the 996’s unveiling. While media attention focused on its relationship with the Boxster and the controversial 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 build. The modern 911 had arrived: roomier, equipped with all the features expected of a late 20th-century sports car, but still unmistakably Porsche’s icon. Most importantly, it still drove like a 911. Only better. Yes, there was a new veneer of sophistication to its performance, but the 996 retained the delicious tactility and urgent response that made the 911 a sports car like no other. Along with the original Boxster, it pulled Porsche back from the brink of extinction. It proved that the 911’s soul could evolve without losing its essence. The 991.2 Carrera: The Heart-Stealing Base Model Of all the Porsches I’ve driven, it was a base model 991.2 Carrera that truly stole my heart. It stole everyone else’s too, judging by the feedback