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40 Years Behind the Wheel: My Top 5 Most Memorable Porsche 911 Experiences After four decades of testing Porsches, these are the 911 models that stand out the most. It’s hard to fathom that it has been forty years since I first got behind the wheel of a Porsche 911. I still remember that car vividly: a white, 3.0-liter Carrera sporting black Fuchs alloys. It was narrow, lacked a rear wing and power steering, and featured a five-speed manual transmission. In many ways, it was as pure a 911 as Porsche had ever produced. While it was undeniably fast, it was also flawed. At the time, I wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about. Perhaps this was because I was testing it alongside a 944 Turbo, a car that cost almost exactly the same as the 911 Carrera in my home country of Australia. However, the 944 Turbo had more power and torque, making it faster on any road, with far less effort, than its illustrious sibling. Regardless, I fell in love with the 911 all the same. “After two days and 600 miles,” I wrote, “I’m certain. I know the 944 Turbo is the better car. But I also know that if it came down to it, if I were agonizing over how to spend my money, I’d take the 911 Carrera home.” It wasn’t a conclusion I reached easily, though. “The 944 Turbo is so competent, it can make a bad driver look good,” I said. “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.” I’ve driven dozens of 911s since, and with every iteration—apart from the 964, which in the early 1990s worryingly suggested the 911 idea was past its use-by date—I’ve marveled at how Porsche has polished its icon, keeping it relevant, exciting, and engaging. Four decades after my first 911 drive, it’s still one of the few new cars on which I’d spend my own hard-earned dollars. Of all the 911s I’ve driven over the past 40 years, here are five of the most memorable. The Original 911 Turbo: An Icon of the 1970s When I first drove that 3.0-liter Carrera, veteran road test journalists spoke of the original Porsche 911 Turbo in hushed tones. They said it 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-wire act requiring quick hands and a steady nerve. The 911 Turbo did not forgive mistakes; it did not tolerate sloppiness. In their estimation, it was a widowmaker. It took me 35 years to get behind the wheel of an original 911 Turbo and discover the truth for myself. The car I drove was one of the first 30 production Turbos ever built, now part of Porsche’s mouthwatering classic collection. Out on the road, acutely aware of its fearsome reputation, I took it very easy at first, experimenting with the throttle, feeling the boost engage, and watching the tachometer, trying to build a mental map of the power and torque curves. The engine was remarkably tractable, happy to purr along at 2,000 rpm in top gear as the 911 Turbo cruised at 45 mph. However, once the engine hit 3,500 rpm, there was a noticeable surge in acceleration as the turbocharger injected 0.8 bar of boost into the induction system. But the sledgehammer blow to the shoulders I had expected wasn’t there. I quickly learned the secret to smooth and spirited driving 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 after more than 50 years, this 911 remains an impressively fast car on the road. First gear reaches 50 mph, second gear 90 mph, and third gear almost 130 mph, which means it will dominate most winding roads using only second and third gear. And while it has a modest 256 hp, it weighs only 2,513 pounds, allowing it to get in and out of corners with ease. Half a century ago, its performance would have seemed otherworldly. The 993-Generation Porsche 911: The End of an Era For Porsche purists, this is the last of the line, the last of the truly traditional 911s. It is the Porsche you drive with your knuckles practically grazing the dashboard, the snarling metallic clatter of an air-cooled flat-six right behind your head. 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. Oh sure, the 993 still had that “pat-pat-patter” front end that demanded to be loaded on corner entry to ensure you hit the apex, and the rear end still swayed through rougher turns, but there was much more sympathy between the two ends. The 993 still did all the things a 911 should do, but with a much greater margin of error. Key to this improvement was a new rear suspension that replaced the semi-trailing arms of old with a new multi-link setup. This configuration allowed for very slight initial toe-out on corner entry, followed by progressive toe-in as lateral loads increased, all while reducing the camber change that had been the Achilles’ heel of 911s since 1963. This innovation was combined with steering that was 16 percent quicker at 2.5 turns lock-to-lock, making the front end feel much more decisive. Additionally, a new six-speed manual transmission allowed the 3.6-liter flat-six to reach its 268-hp power peak at 6,100 rpm more effectively, thanks to lighter internals, a Bosch Motronic 2.0 engine management system, and a revised dual-exhaust system. Compared to the 964 model it replaced, the 993 was a revelation. It wasn’t just the engineering upgrades, executed under the leadership of Ulrich Bez—who later became the head of Aston Martin: the exterior redesign, directed by design chief Harm Lagaay, corrected the visual problems of the 964, a car he thought was too tall at the front and too raked down at the rear. The interior was cleaner as well, with fewer buttons placed 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 Porsche 911: The Car That Saved Porsche At the time, it was heresy. Porsche’s decision to install a water-cooled flat-six in the rear of the 996-series 911 was, to the aficionados, the automotive equivalent of Bob Dylan ditching his acoustic six-string and picking up a Fender Stratocaster at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. However, 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 direction of Porsche R&D chief Horst Marchart, the 996 was a clever 911, not least because it shared 38 percent of its components with an all-new, less expensive mid-engine roadster that would become known as the Boxster. Iconoclastic Porsche boss Wendelin Weideking knew the Boxster was essential to give dealers something new to sell once the aging 928 and 968 models went out of production. “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 media attention focused on its relationship with the Boxster and the water-cooled engine, the 996’s true 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 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