40 Years of Porsches: My Top 5 Most Memorable 911 Models Ever Driven
It’s hard to believe it’s been four decades since I first got behind the wheel of a Porsche 911. My first experience was with a pristine white 3.0-liter Carrera featuring classic black Fuchs alloys. It was a raw, pure 911 experience—narrow body, no rear wing, no power steering, and a five-speed manual transmission. It was fast, yes, but it was also demanding.
At the time, I was testing it alongside a 944 Turbo. In my home country of Australia, they were similarly priced, but the 944 Turbo was undeniably faster and more powerful. Yet, despite the sheer competence of the 944, I found myself captivated by the 911.
“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 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 a conclusion I came to 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 then, and with every iteration—apart from the 964, a car that 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 and 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: A Beast of a Machine
When I first drove the original Porsche 911 Turbo (930), veteran road-test journalists spoke of it in reverent tones. They warned that it demanded respect, a car where the difference between understeer and oversteer was a razor’s edge. It was, they called it, a widowmaker. After 35 years, I finally got to experience it myself.
This was one of the very first 30 production Turbos, now part of Porsche’s prestigious classic fleet. Naturally, I approached it with extreme caution, playing with the throttle, feeling the turbocharger build boost, and watching the tachometer, trying to understand its power delivery. The engine was surprisingly tractable at lower RPMs, happily rumbling along at 2,000 rpm in top gear at 45 mph. However, once the engine hit 3,500 rpm, the acceleration surge was palpable as the turbocharger spooled up, pushing 0.8 bar of boost into the induction. But the sledgehammer blow I expected wasn’t quite there.
The secret to driving the original 911 Turbo smoothly and quickly is to keep the 3.0-liter flat-six spinning above 4,000 rpm to keep the turbo spooled up. Yes, there’s noticeable turbo lag by modern standards, but it’s manageable. Even today, this 911 is impressively fast on the road. First gear reaches 50 mph, second up to 90 mph, and third pushes close to 130 mph. This means you can tear through most winding roads using just second and third gears. And although it only produces 256 hp, it weighs just 2,513 pounds, making it incredibly agile in corners. Back in 1975, this performance would have felt otherworldly.
The 993 Generation: The Last of the Air-Cooled Icons
For purists, the 993 is the ultimate 911. It’s the car that embodies the classic driving experience—your knuckles grazing the dash and the glorious, snarling metallic clatter of an air-cooled flat-six right behind your head. But back in 1994, when I first drove it, the 993 represented the future of the 911. It was the first model in the line that began to dance around Isaac Newton’s laws of physics. The front end still demanded careful loading on corner entry to hit the apex, and the rear end still had that characteristic 911 swagger on rough turns, but the balance was vastly improved. The 993 still did 911 things, but within a much safer margin.
Key to this transformation was the new rear suspension. Porsche replaced the old semi-trailing arms with a multi-link setup that allowed for minute initial toe-out on corner entry and then progressive toe-in as lateral loads increased. This reduced the camber change that had plagued 911s since 1963. It was coupled with steering that turned 2.5 turns lock-to-lock, 16% quicker than before, making the front feel far more decisive. Plus, a new six-speed manual gearbox allowed the 3.6-liter flat-six to sing harder to its 268-hp peak at 6,100 rpm, thanks to lighter internals, a Bosch Motronic 2.0 engine management system, and a new dual exhaust.
Compared to the 964 it replaced, the 993 was a revelation. It wasn’t just the engineering improvements, led by Ulrich Bez (who later headed Aston Martin): The exterior redesign, under design chief Harm Lagaay, corrected the visual flaws of the 964, a car Lagaay felt was too tall at the front and too low at the rear. The interior was cleaner too, with fewer buttons scattered randomly. The 993 was a 911 that was faster, more forgiving, and crucially, even more desirable.
The 996 Generation: The Water-Cooled Game Changer
At the time, it felt like heresy. Porsche’s decision to install a water-cooled flat-six in the tail of the 996-series 911 was, to the aficionados, the automotive equivalent of Bob Dylan trading his acoustic guitar 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. 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% of its components with an all-new, less expensive mid-engine roadster that the world would come to know as the Boxster. Iconoclastic Porsche boss Wendelin Weideking knew the Boxster was essential to give dealers something else to sell when the aging 928 and 968 models were discontinued. “We built 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 the media fixated on its relationship with the Boxster and the water-cooled engine, the 996’s real story was 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, packed with the features expected of a late 20th-century sports car, but still undeniably Porsche. Most importantly, it still drove like a 911. Only better. There was a new layer of sophistication to its performance, but the 996 retained the exquisite tactility and urgent response that made the 911 unique. And along with the original Boxster, it pulled Porsche back from the brink of extinction.
The 991.2 Carrera: The Base Model That Stole the Show
Of all the 911s I’ve driven, it was a base 991.2 Carrera that truly captured my heart. It stole everyone else’s too, judging by the feedback I received from colleagues at the time who drove it. Most press fleets tend to be stacked with high-spec vehicles loaded with options, presumably because automotive PR departments think we’re impressed by such things. So Porsche Cars North America’s decision to include a base 911 Carrera among the roster of then-new 991.2 models available for our 2017 MotorTrend Car of the Year testing seemed bold. In truth, though, it was an inspired move.
The 991.2 introduced a new 3.4-liter turbocharged engine, offered with 370 hp in the base Carrera or
