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The Legacy of the 911: My Top 5 Most Memorable Porsche 911s After forty years immersed in the world of automotive testing, few cars have captured the essence of pure driving performance like the Porsche 911. As a professional driver and automotive journalist, I have experienced countless iterations of this iconic sports car. The original 3.0-liter Carrera was my introduction to the 911 in 1984, a stark contrast to the more modern 944 Turbo I tested alongside it. While the 944 was faster and more technologically advanced, it was the 911 that resonated deeply with me, embodying a raw, visceral connection between driver and machine that modern cars often lack. “After two days and 600 miles,” I wrote in the MotorTrend archives, “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.” It wasn’t an easy decision, given the 944’s competency, but the 911’s flawed genius ultimately won me over. “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 have driven dozens of 911s, marveling at Porsche’s ability to refine its icon without diluting its core identity. With the exception of the 964 generation, which briefly suggested that the 911 concept was obsolete, Porsche has successfully kept the 911 relevant, exciting, and engaging. Four decades on, the 911 remains one of the few new cars on which I would spend my own hard-earned money. Here are the five Porsche 911 models that have left the deepest impression on me during my career. The Original 911 Turbo: A Widowmaker’s Promise When I first tested the 3.0-liter Carrera, experienced road-test journalists spoke of the original Porsche 911 Turbo with a mixture of awe and trepidation. They warned that the 930 Turbo demanded the utmost respect when driven with intent. The car’s binary boost states made the traditional 911 tightrope—the delicate balance between corner-entry understeer and corner-exit oversteer—a dangerous feat requiring quick hands and absolute confidence. This was a car that did not forgive mistakes, and did not tolerate sloppiness. It was, they said, a widowmaker. It took me 35 years to finally get behind the wheel of an original 911 Turbo and discover the truth behind the legend. The car was one of the first 30 production Turbos ever built, and it now resides in Porsche’s spectacular classic fleet. Out on the road, fully aware of its fearsome reputation, I took it very easy at first. I spent the initial phase playing with the throttle, feeling the boost come in and watching the tachometer, trying to build a mental map of the power and torque curves. The 3.0-liter flat-six proved to be remarkably tractable, happy to chug along at 2,000 rpm in top gear, keeping the 911 Turbo comfortably at 45 mph. However, once the engine hit 3,500 rpm, there was a noticeable acceleration surge as the turbocharger huffed 0.8 bar of boost into the induction system. But the sledgehammer blow between the shoulder blades that I had expected never materialized. I quickly learned that the trick to smooth and quick 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 fully energized. Yes, there is turbo lag—very noticeable by modern standards—but it is manageable. Even though this 911 is more than 50 years old, it is still an impressively fast car on the road. First gear pulls smoothly to 50 mph, second gear takes you to 90 mph, and third gear nearly reaches 130 mph. This means it can destroy most winding two-lane roads using only second and third gears. And while it may have a mere 256 hp, it weighs just 2,513 pounds, allowing it to readily get into and out of corners. Half a century ago, its performance would have seemed otherworldly. The 993 Generation: The Last of the Air-Cooled Icons For Porsche purists, the 993 generation is the definitive 911—the last of the true, air-cooled 911s. It is the car you drive with your knuckles brushing the dash and 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 the very laws of physics. Oh, to be clear, the 993 still had the “pat-pat-pattery” front end that demanded to be loaded on corner entry to ensure you hit the apex, and the rear end still had a slight rhumba-like wobble through the rougher turns. But there was a much better synergy between the front and rear. The 993 still did 911 things, but with a significantly wider margin of error. Key to this improvement was a revolutionary rear suspension. Porsche replaced the old semi-trailing arms with a new multilink setup. This allowed for very slight initial toe-out on corner entry, which then transitioned to progressive toe-in as lateral loads increased. All of this was achieved while simultaneously reducing the camber change that had been the Achilles’ heel of 911s since 1963. This engineering marvel was combined with a new six-speed manual transmission that made the most of the 3.6-liter flat-six. The engine zinged harder to its 268 hp power peak at 6,100 rpm, thanks to lighter internals, a Bosch Motronic 2.0 engine management system, and a new dual exhaust system. Compared to the 964 model it replaced, the 993 was a revelation. This wasn’t just about the engineering upgrades, which were implemented under the leadership of Ulrich Bez, who later became the head of Aston Martin. The exterior redesign, executed under the direction of design chief Harm Lagaay, corrected the visual problems of the 964, a car he felt was too tall at the front and too pulled down at the rear. The interior was cleaner too, with fewer buttons scattered in random locations. The 993 was a 911 that was faster and more forgiving than ever. And, most importantly, it was more desirable, too. The 996 Generation: Saving Porsche with Water-Cooling At the time, it was 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 ditching his six-string acoustic guitar and picking up 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 to me. It was the 911 that saved Porsche from the brink of financial collapse. Engineered and developed under the direction of Porsche R&D chief Horst Marchart, the 996 was a clever 911. Not least because it shared 38 percent of its parts with an all-new, less expensive mid-engine roadster that the world would come to know as the Boxster. Iconoclastic Porsche boss Wendelin Weideking knew the Boxster was needed to give dealers something else to sell when the aging 928 and 968 models were phased out. “We did two cars for the price of one-and-a-half,” design boss Lagaay said with a smile after the company unveiled the 996. But while the media attention focused on its relationship with the Boxster and the water-cooled engine, the 996’s real story ran much deeper. In 1994, it had taken Porsche 130 hours to build a 993-series 911; the 996 took just 60 hours to build. The modern 911 had arrived: roomier and equipped with all the features expected of a late 20th-century sports car, yet still recognizably Porsche’s icon. Most importantly, it still drove like a 911. Only better. Yes, there was a new veneer of sophistication to the way it went about its business, but the 996 retained the delicious tactility and urgent response that had made the 911 a sports car like no other. Along with that original Boxster, it saved Porsche from extinction. The 991.2 Carrera: The Benchmark for the Perfect Sports Car Of all the 911s I have driven, it was a base 991.2 Carrera that truly stole my heart. It stole everyone else