Tara regains custody of Harrison, Kyle loses everything The Young And The Restless Spoilers

A 40-Year Passion: My All-Time Top 5 Porsche 911 Icons It’s hard to believe it’s been four decades since I first slipped behind the wheel of a Porsche 911. I remember that first encounter vividly. It was a Glacier White 3.0-liter Carrera with those unmistakable black Fuchs alloys. With its narrow body, no rear wing, and raw, five-speed manual gearbox, it was about as pure a 911 as Porsche has ever engineered. It was fast, certainly, but it wasn’t perfect. In fact, at the time, I was testing it alongside a 944 Turbo. In my home country of Australia, they cost virtually the same. But the 944 Turbo delivered more power and torque, and it was substantially quicker on the road with far less effort. So, I wondered, what was the big deal about the 911? Even then, I fell in love. “After two days and 600 miles,” I wrote in my review, “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 own money—I’d take the 911 Carrera home.” It wasn’t a conclusion I reached lightly. “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 something deeper. “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 day, I’ve driven countless 911s. And with every iteration—with the notable exception of the 964 in the early 1990s, which frankly suggested the 911 concept might have reached its expiration date—I’ve been mesmerized by how Porsche has refined its icon, keeping it not just relevant, but absolutely thrilling. Four decades later, the 911 is still one of the few new cars I’d genuinely spend my own hard-earned money on. Among all the 911s I’ve had the pleasure of driving over the past 40 years, these are the five that remain indelibly etched in my memory. The Original 911 Turbo (1975) When I drove that early Carrera, veteran road test journalists spoke of the original Porsche 911 Turbo in hushed, almost reverent tones. They said it was a machine that demanded the utmost respect at the limit—a car where the binary nature of its boost 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 did not forgive mistakes; it tolerated no sloppiness. It was, by all accounts, a widowmaker. It took me 35 years to finally get behind the wheel of an original 911 Turbo and see for myself. The car was one of the first 30 production Turbos ever built, now a prized piece in Porsche’s breathtaking classic collection. Aware of its fearsome reputation, I started very gently, easing into the throttle, feeling the boost creep in, and watching the tachometer to build a mental map of the power and torque curves. The engine was surprisingly tractive, happy to chug along at 2,000 rpm in top gear, letting the 911 Turbo glide through traffic at 45 mph. Once the revs climbed past 3,500 rpm, though, the surge of acceleration was undeniable as the turbocharger fed 0.8 bar of pressure into the induction system. But that sledgehammer blow I’d been braced for wasn’t there. I learned that the secret to smooth, rapid progress in the original 911 Turbo was keeping that 3.0-liter flat-six spinning at 4,000 rpm or higher to keep the turbocharger fully spooled. Yes, there is noticeable turbo lag—very noticeable by today’s standards—but it’s manageable. Even today, this 911 is an impressively fast car on the road. First gear tops out at 50 mph, second at 90 mph, and third at nearly 130 mph. That means you can shred virtually any winding two-lane road using only second and third gear. And while it boasts a modest 256 hp, it weighs just 2,513 pounds, allowing it to dive into and exit corners with surprising agility. Half a century ago, its performance would have seemed utterly alien. The 993-Generation Porsche 911 (1996) For the purists, this is the last of its kind—the final, true 911. It’s the Porsche that makes your knuckles graze the dashboard while you listen to the snarling metallic symphony 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 generation to seriously challenge the laws of physics. Now, don’t get me wrong, the 993 still had that classic 911 front end that demanded to be loaded aggressively on corner entry to find the apex, and the tail still danced through rough corners with a characteristic 911 rhumba. However, there was a new harmony between the front and rear. The 993 still felt fundamentally like a 911, but it operated within a vastly improved margin of error. The star of the show was a groundbreaking rear suspension that replaced the aging semi-trailing arms with a sophisticated multilink setup. This system allowed for a very slight initial toe-out on corner entry and then progressive toe-in as lateral loads increased, all while drastically reducing the camber change that had been the Achilles’ heel of 911s since 1963. This engineering marvel was paired with steering that, at just 2.5 turns lock-to-lock, was 16% quicker, making the front end feel incredibly decisive. A new six-speed manual transmission maximized the potential of the 3.6-liter flat-six, which pulled harder to its 268-hp peak at 6,100 rpm thanks to lighter internals, a Bosch Motronic 2.0 engine management system, and a revised dual-exhaust setup. Compared to the 964 it replaced, the 993 was a revelation. It wasn’t just the engineering upgrades, masterminded by Ulrich Bez (later the head of Aston Martin). The exterior redesign, led by design chief Harm Lagaay, corrected the visual flaws of the 964—a car he felt was too tall at the front and too squat at the rear. The interior was cleaner, too, with fewer buttons scattered haphazardly. The 993 was a 911 that was faster and more forgiving than ever. And most significantly, it was more desirable than ever before. The 996-Generation Porsche 911 (1998) At the time, it was automotive heresy. Porsche’s decision to install a water-cooled flat-six in the rear of the 996-series 911 was, to the faithful, the equivalent of Bob Dylan ditching his acoustic six-string 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. This was the 911 that ultimately saved Porsche. Engineered and developed under the leadership of Porsche R&D chief Horst Marchart, the 996 was a remarkably clever piece of engineering. Its brilliance lay not least in its shared platform with an all-new, less expensive mid-engine roadster that the world would come to know as the Boxster. The iconoclastic Porsche boss, Wendelin Wiedeking, understood that the Boxster was crucial to give dealers something else to sell once the aging 928 and 968 models were phased out. “We did two cars for the price of one and a half,” design boss Harm Lagaay quipped with a smile after the company unveiled the 996. But while the media fixated on its relationship with the Boxster and its controversial water-cooled engine, the true significance of the 996 ran much deeper. In 1994, it took Porsche 130 hours to assemble a 993-series 911. The 996, however, required only 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 unmistakably Porsche’s icon. Crucially, it still drove like a 911. Only better. Yes, there was a new veneer of sophistication to its operation, but the 996 retained the exquisite tactility and urgent response that had made the 911 a sports car like no