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The Evolution of an Icon: My Top 5 Porsche 911s After 40 Years Behind the Wheel For four decades, I’ve had the privilege of evaluating Porsches, and for much of that time, the Porsche 911 has been a constant in my driving experience. It’s difficult to believe it’s been 40 years since I first got behind the wheel of this legendary machine. My initial encounter was with a white 3.0-liter Carrera, featuring black Fuchs wheels, no rear wing, no power steering, and a five-speed manual transmission. It was a pure, unadulterated example of what the 911 was at the time. At that moment, I was testing it alongside a 944 Turbo, which cost about the same in Australia back then. The 944 Turbo was faster and more powerful, requiring less effort to navigate any road. However, despite the 944 Turbo’s superior performance on paper, I found myself falling in love with the 911. I recall writing, “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.” It wasn’t an easy decision. I acknowledged, “The 944 Turbo is so competent, it can make a bad driver look good. Its soaring, searing performance is superbly counterbalanced by a chassis of astounding ability.” Yet, the 911 held an emotional grip. “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 drive, I’ve driven dozens of 911s. Except for the 964 in the early 1990s—which I feared was a sign that the 911 concept was past its prime—I have marveled at how Porsche has continuously refined its icon, keeping it relevant, exciting, and engaging. Four decades after my first 911 experience, it remains one of the few new cars I would happily purchase with my own money. Of all the 911 models I’ve driven over the past 40 years, here are the five most memorable. The Original 911 Turbo: A Legend of Raw Power When I first encountered the original Porsche 911 Turbo, veteran road-test journalists spoke of it in hushed tones. They described it as a car that demanded the utmost respect when driven with intent, a car whose binary boost states made navigating the treacherous tightrope between corner-entry understeer and corner-exit oversteer an arduous task requiring quick reflexes and nerve. The 911 Turbo was notoriously unforgiving and intolerant of sloppiness. It earned a reputation as a car that could break hearts as easily as it could break lap records. It took me 35 years to actually get behind the wheel of an original 911 Turbo and discover the truth behind its fearsome reputation. The car I drove was one of the first 30 production Turbos ever built, now preserved in Porsche’s prestigious classic fleet. Out on the road, fully aware of its reputation, I started cautiously, easing into the throttle and monitoring the boost pressure. I attempted to map out the power and torque curves mentally. Surprisingly, the engine was remarkably tractable, settling into a comfortable 2,000 rpm in top gear and ticking along at 45 mph without complaint. However, once the engine reached 3,500 rpm, a noticeable surge of acceleration took hold as the turbocharger injected 0.8 bar into the induction system. Yet, the sledgehammer blow between the shoulder blades that I had anticipated didn’t materialize. I discovered that the key to smooth and rapid progress in the original 911 Turbo was to keep the 3.0-liter flat-six spinning at 4,000 rpm or more, ensuring the turbocharger remained energized. Yes, there is noticeable turbo lag by modern standards, but it is manageable. Even after more than 50 years, this 911 remains an impressively fast car on the road. The first gear tops out at 50 mph, the second at 90 mph, and the third approaches 130 mph. This means it can tackle most winding roads using only second and third gear. And while it produces a mere 256 hp, its curb weight of just 2,513 pounds makes it agile and easy to maneuver through corners. Half a century ago, its performance would have seemed otherworldly. 993-Generation Porsche 911: The Last of the Purist’s Air-Cooled Icon For many Porsche purists, the 993-generation 911 represents the final iteration of the “true” 911. It’s the car you drive with your knuckles grazing the dashboard, with the distinctive metallic clatter of an air-cooled flat-six humming behind you. However, back in 1994 when I first drove it, the 993 was the 911 of the future, a model that dared to challenge Isaac Newton’s laws of physics. Sure, the 993 retained the characteristic front end that required careful loading on corner entry to ensure precise apex hitting, and the rear still exhibited a slight ‘rhumba’ in rougher turns. But there was a significant improvement in harmony between the front and rear. The 993 still performed classic 911 maneuvers, but within a much safer margin. Key to this evolution was a revolutionary rear suspension system. Porsche replaced the traditional semi-trailing arms with a new multilink setup that introduced a subtle initial toe-out on corner entry, followed by progressive toe-in as lateral loads increased. This virtually eliminated the camber change that had been the Achilles’ heel of 911s since their debut in 1963. This engineering feat was coupled with a new six-speed manual transmission and revised steering, which now turned 2.5 turns lock-to-lock—a 16 percent reduction that made the front end feel significantly more decisive. The 3.6-liter flat-six received internal modifications, including a lighter design, a Bosch Motronic 2.0 engine management system, and a new dual-exhaust setup, resulting in higher performance and a peak output of 268 hp at 6,100 rpm. 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 would later become the head of Aston Martin; it was also the exterior redesign. Harm Lagaay, the design director at the time, corrected what he perceived as visual issues with the 964, which he felt was too tall at the front and visually compressed at the rear. The interior was cleaner, too, with better-organized button placement. The 993 was a 911 that was faster and more forgiving than ever, and more importantly, it was more desirable. The 996-Generation Porsche 911: The Savior of Porsche In its era, the 996-generation 911 was heresy. Porsche’s decision to replace the air-cooled flat-six with a water-cooled engine in the tail of the 996-series 911 was, to the purists, akin to Bob Dylan abandoning his acoustic guitar for an electric Stratocaster at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. However, the 996, the first complete redesign of Porsche’s legendary sports car in 34 years, was a hero car in my eyes. It was the 911 that saved Porsche. Engineered and developed under the direction of Porsche’s R&D chief, Horst Marchart, the 996 was an exceptionally clever 911. Its brilliance lay in sharing 38 percent of its components with an all-new, more affordable mid-engine roadster that the world would come to know as the Boxster. Porsche CEO Wendelin Weideking understood that the Boxster was crucial for dealerships to have another model to sell once the aging 928 and 968 models were phased out. As design boss Lagaay wryly commented after the company unveiled the 996, “We did two cars for the price of one-and-a-half.” While the media focused heavily on its relationship with the Boxster and the controversial water-cooled engine, the 996’s true significance ran much deeper. In 1994, building a 993-series 911 took Porsche approximately 130 hours. In contrast, the 996 required only 60 hours to assemble. This marked the arrival of the modern 911. It offered more interior space and all the features expected of a late 20th-century sports car while remaining unmistakably Porsche’s iconic design. Most importantly, it still drove like a 911—only better. While it now possessed a veneer of sophistication in its performance, the 996 retained the delicious tactility and urgent responsiveness that had defined the