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My 5 Most Memorable Porsche 911 Experiences: A 40-Year Test Drive Review Forty years behind the wheel of Porsches—can you believe it? My first drive of a 911 was a white 3.0-liter Carrera with classic black Fuchs wheels. It had no power steering, a five-speed stick, and no rear wing. It was pure, lightweight, and raw. I remember being blown away by the sheer speed, but then I drove a 944 Turbo right after. That car cost about the same back home in Australia, had more power, more torque, and was significantly faster with less effort. But the 911? It was a different beast. I still have my notes from that first comparison. I admitted the 944 Turbo was the better car by pure performance metrics. The 944’s capabilities were astounding; it could make a novice look like a pro. But when it came down to it, faced with a decision, I’d have taken the 911 Carrera home. The author of the article admitted that he had fallen in love with the 911 all the same. I wrote, “After two days and 600 miles, 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.” I wasn’t easy on the 944 Turbo either, saying, “The 944 Turbo is so competent, it can make a bad driver look good.” Its incredible performance was beautifully balanced by a chassis of incredible ability. But the 911 called to 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.” Since that first encounter, I’ve driven dozens of 911s. Each generation, with one exception—the 964, which I thought signaled the end of the 911 idea in the early 90s—has somehow managed to keep the icon relevant, exciting, and deeply engaging. Forty years later, the 911 remains one of the few new cars I’d buy with my own money. Of all the 911 models I’ve had the privilege to test over the past four decades, here are the five that stand out the most. The Original 911 Turbo (930) Back when I drove that early 3.0-liter Carrera, veteran road-test journalists used words like “awed” when speaking of the original Porsche 911 Turbo. They said it demanded the utmost respect when driven with real intent. Its dual-mode boost behavior—a sharp transition from manageable power to an all-out sledgehammer—made navigating the delicate tightrope between corner-entry understeer and corner-exit oversteer an exercise for the truly skilled with swift reflexes. The 911 Turbo didn’t forgive mistakes, nor did it tolerate sloppiness. In fact, many called it a widowmaker. It took me 35 years to finally get behind the wheel of an original 911 Turbo and understand the truth behind those stories. The car I drove was one of the first 30 production Turbos ever built, and it’s now a prized part of Porsche’s classic collection. Out on the road, fully aware of its fearsome reputation, I took it very easy at first. I played with the throttle, feeling the boost kick in and watching the tachometer, slowly building a mental map of the engine’s power delivery. The engine was remarkably tractable, content to chug along at 2,000 rpm in top gear at 45 mph. However, once the engine hit 3,500 rpm, the acceleration surge was noticeable as the turbocharger shoveled 0.8 bar into the induction system. But the visceral hammer blow between the shoulder blades that I expected wasn’t quite there. I discovered that the trick to driving the original 911 Turbo smoothly and quickly was keeping the 3.0-liter flat-six spinning at 4,000 rpm or more. This kept the turbocharger well-energized. Sure, there was turbo lag—very noticeable by today’s standards—but it was manageable. Even after 50 years, this 911 is an astonishingly fast car on public roads. First gear tops out at 50 mph, second at 90 mph, and third at almost 130 mph, meaning you could destroy most challenging stretches of road using just second and third gears. And even though it only produced around 256 hp, it weighed just 2,513 pounds. This meant it handled corners incredibly well. Half a century ago, its performance would have seemed otherworldly. 993-Generation Porsche 911: The Last of the Air-Cooled Icons For Porsche purists, this is the end of an era—the last of the “real” 911s. It’s the Porsche that makes you feel deeply connected to the machine, your knuckles grazing the dash as the metallic, mechanical symphony of an air-cooled flat-six sings behind your head. But back in 1994, when I first drove it, the 993 was essentially the 911 of the future. It was the first generation to genuinely challenge Isaac Newton’s laws of physics in a way Porsche had only flirted with before. Sure, the 993 still featured that distinctive front-end behavior that demanded precision, requiring drivers to load the front axle on corner entry to hit the apex perfectly. The rear end still exhibited that slight tendency to wiggle on rougher turns, but there was a much greater harmony between the front and rear dynamics. The 993 still performed as a 911 should, but within a vastly improved safety margin. The key to this transformation was a revolutionary rear suspension system. It replaced the aging semi-trailing arms with a sophisticated new multilink setup. This configuration allowed for very slight initial toe-out on corner entry, which then transitioned to progressive toe-in as lateral loads increased. Crucially, it significantly reduced the camber change that had plagued 911s since 1963. This engineering leap was combined with a new six-speed manual transmission and steering that was 16 percent quicker, turning the wheel lock-to-lock in just 2.5 turns. These upgrades made the front end feel far more decisive. The 3.6-liter flat-six also benefited from lighter internal components, a Bosch Motronic 2.0 engine management system, and a new dual exhaust, pushing power up to 268 hp at 6,100 rpm. The 993 was a revelation compared to the 964 model it replaced. It wasn’t just the engineering; the exterior redesign, led by design chief Harm Lagaay, corrected the visual issues of the 964, which he felt was too nose-high and rear-low. The interior was much cleaner too, with fewer buttons scattered randomly. The 993 was faster, more forgiving, and, most importantly, even more desirable than ever. 996-Generation Porsche 911: The Water-Cooled Hero When Porsche first revealed the 996-series 911 with its water-cooled flat-six engine, it felt like heresy to the faithful. It was the automotive equivalent of Bob Dylan ditching his acoustic guitar for a Fender Stratocaster at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. But the 996—the first clean-sheet redesign of Porsche’s relentless 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 an ingeniously engineered 911. One of its smartest moves was sharing 38 percent of its components with the brand-new, less expensive mid-engine roadster known worldwide as the Boxster. Porsche’s iconoclastic CEO, Wendelin Weideking, knew the Boxster was essential to give dealers something to sell when the aging 928 and 968 models were discontinued. As design boss Lagaay humorously put it after the unveiling: “We did two cars for the price of one and a half.” However, while the media focused on the shared platform and the water-cooled engine, the 996’s true significance ran much deeper. Back in 1994, it took Porsche 130 hours to build a 993-series 911. The 996, however, took just 60 hours to assemble. The modern 911 had officially arrived: it was more spacious, featured all the amenities expected of a late 20th-century sports car, and yet it remained recognizably a 911. Most importantly, it still felt like a 911—only better. A new layer of sophistication wrapped its performance, but the 996 retained the incredible feel and responsive urgency that made the 911 unique. Along with the original Boxster, it pulled Porsche back from the brink of extinction