Dylan declined Ridge’s offer to become his assistant and announced his departure from Forester B&B

The Defining 911s: A Senior Journalist’s Top Five After 40 Years Behind the Wheel Forty years. It’s a long time to spend testing cars, and in my career, I’ve had the privilege of driving countless Porsche 911s. I still remember my first one, a crisp white 3.0-liter Carrera with those iconic black Fuchs alloys. No rear wing, no power steering, just a five-speed manual—a pure distillation of the 911 ethos. It was fast, no doubt, but I was also wrestling with a 944 Turbo at the same time. In Australia, where I was living then, they cost virtually the same. The 944 was faster, more forgiving, and easier to drive fast. But as I wrote back then, “I know the 944 Turbo is the better car. But I also know that if it came to the crunch… I’d take the 911 Carrera home.” It wasn’t a decision I made 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 the heart. It wasn’t tailored for everyone. It demanded understanding, respect, and a touch of masochism. That’s why I’d take it home. Over the decades since, I’ve watched Porsche refine its icon. While the 964 era felt like a brief stumble—a moment where I worried the 911 idea might have reached its expiration date—every other iteration has impressed me with its ability to stay relevant, exciting, and utterly engaging. Four decades on, the 911 remains one of the few new cars I’d happily spend my own money on. From the sheer brutality of the first Turbo to the surgical precision of the latest GT3 RS, these are the five Porsches that have truly defined my career. The Original 911 Turbo: Walking the Widowmaker’s Tightrope Veteran road testers of the 1970s spoke of the original Porsche 911 Turbo in hushed, almost fearful tones. They described a machine that demanded the utmost respect, a car whose binary boost kicked in like a sledgehammer, transforming the already delicate 911 handling into a high-stakes game of chicken between terminal understeer and corner-exit oversteer. It didn’t forgive mistakes; it punished sloppiness. It was, they warned, a widowmaker. It took me 35 years to finally experience one firsthand and understand the truth behind the legends. The car I drove was one of the first 30 production Turbos ever built, now part of Porsche’s breathtaking classic collection. Stepping into it, aware of its infamous reputation, I took it very gently at first. I played with the throttle, felt the turbo spool up, and watched the tach needle climb, trying to map the power curve in my mind. The 3.0-liter flat-six was surprisingly tractable at low revs, happy to hum along at 2,000 rpm in top gear while the car crept along at 45 mph. But once the revs hit 3,500 rpm, the magic happened. There was a palpable surge as the turbocharger shoved 0.8 bar of boost into the induction system. It wasn’t the instantaneous, explosive bang I had braced myself for, but a deep, muscular surge that filled the cabin. To drive it smoothly and quickly, you had to keep the engine spinning above 4,000 rpm to keep the turbo energized. Yes, there was turbo lag by modern standards, but it was manageable. Even today, this car is staggeringly fast. First gear punches through to 50 mph, second to 90 mph, and third will demolish nearly 130 mph. That means a winding two-lane road can be conquered using just second and third gear. While its 256 horsepower might seem modest now, the car weighs a scant 2,513 pounds, meaning it snaps into and out of corners with alacrity. Half a century ago, this level of performance was simply otherworldly. It was the car that truly cemented the 911’s legendary status, even if it required a certain level of bravery to drive it flat-out. The 993 Generation: The Last Air-Cooled Masterpiece For the purists, the 993 is the last of the line—the final air-cooled 911. It’s the car you drive with your knuckles brushing the dash, the metallic clatter of an air-cooled flat-six a visceral symphony behind your head. Yet, when I first drove it in 1994, the 993 was the 911 of the future, a car that finally seemed to make peace with physics. Oh, sure, it still had that pat-pat-pattery front end that demanded to be loaded on corner entry to hit the apex, and the rear end still danced a delicate rhumba through rough turns. But there was a new harmony between the front and rear. The 993 did all the things a 911 should do, but within a much safer margin of error. The secret lay in the new rear suspension. Porsche ditched the trailing arms for a revolutionary multilink setup. This allowed for subtle initial toe-out on turn-in, which then progressively transitioned to toe-in as lateral loads increased, while drastically reducing the camber change that had plagued 911s since 1963. This mechanical genius was paired with steering that was 16 percent quicker, with only 2.5 turns lock-to-lock, making the front end feel far more decisive. And then there was the new six-speed manual, designed to exploit the 3.6-liter flat-six, which now zipped to its 268-hp peak at 6,100 rpm thanks to lighter internals, Bosch Motronic 2.0 engine management, and a revised dual-exhaust system. Compared to the 964 it replaced, the 993 was a revelation. It wasn’t just the engineering—done under Ulrich Bez, who later became the head of Aston Martin—or the exterior redesign by Harm Lagaay, who thought the 964 was too tall at the front and too low at the rear. The 993 was fundamentally better. It was faster, more forgiving, and, crucially, more desirable. It perfected the 911 formula, adding a layer of sophistication without sacrificing the soul that made the car iconic. It’s the air-cooled benchmark, a car that reminds you what driving should feel like. The 996 Generation: Saving Porsche, One Water-Cooled Cylinder at a Time When Porsche decided to put a water-cooled flat-six in the tail of the 996-series 911, the purists were outraged. To them, it was automotive heresy, the equivalent of Bob Dylan switching to a Fender Strat at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. But the 996—the first clean-sheet redesign of the 911 in 34 years—was, in my eyes, a hero car. It was the 911 that saved Porsche from extinction. Engineered and developed under the watchful eye of Porsche R&D chief Horst Marchart, the 996 was a masterpiece of clever engineering. It shared 38 percent of its components with an all-new, lower-cost mid-engine roadster the world would soon know as the Boxster. The late, great Porsche boss Wendelin Weideking knew the Boxster was essential; it gave dealers something else to sell after the aging 928 and 968 models were discontinued. “We did two cars for the price of one-and-a-half,” design boss Lagaay said with a smile after the reveal. But while the media focused on the Boxster and the water-cooled engine, the 996’s true significance was much deeper. In 1994, it took Porsche 130 hours to build a 993; the 996 took just 60 hours. The modern 911 had arrived. It was roomier, equipped with all the features expected of a late 20th-century sports car, but it was still unmistakably a 911. Most importantly, it still drove like a 911—only better. There was a new veneer of sophistication, yes, but the 996 retained the delicious tactility and urgent response that had made the 911 unique. It, along with the original Boxster, dragged Porsche back from the brink of financial collapse, proving that innovation isn’t the enemy of tradition. The 991.2 Carrera: The Perfect Balance of Purity and Performance Of all the 911s I’ve driven, it was a base 991.2 Carrera that truly captured my heart. It won over everyone else who drove it, too. Most press fleets are stacked with high-spec cars loaded with options, which automotive PRs probably think impress us. So, Porsche Cars North America’s decision to include a base 911 Carrera among the press cars for the 2017 MotorTrend Car of the Year