You never feel completely safe in a Porsche 911
By The Prodigal Fool, published on 14 June 2010
Have you ever been hunting with dogs? Ever watched the nose of a well-bred hound as it darts around furiously in the air, desperate to pick up the scent? Then, seconds later it gets it; the nose is down and the dog is off like a bullet? That, ladies and gentlemen, is what it’s like hurtling along behind the wheel of a 911. The weight of the engine in the rear will occasionally push the nose up to look for the best line. Then, all of a sudden, it’ll find it, plant itself down and you’re catapulted again on another exhilarating blast.
When we mentioned the Porsche Carrera S that Nokia lent us recently we said that the time we’d spent behind its wheel had been
a very special – possibly life-changing – week.
Strong words? Yes. But every one justified. You see we think the 911 (we’re talking generically here by the way; we favour the C4S, you might prefer to go all out and buy the GT3 RS; it doesn’t matter, what follows applies to any 911 you opt for) is quite simply the world’s best sports car, a seminal vehicle that is as exciting to look at as it is fun to drive, as pride-inducing to own as it is challenging to master. The 911 is a true classic and once you’ve spent time with one, you’ll want to devote a lot more time and effort to figuring out how to own one. It’s life-changing indeed.
To understand why the 911 has made such an impression on us, you need to understand what drives our buying decisions. The Prodigal rules of sports car buying are all but identical to the Prodigal rules of watch buying. We demand sports cars that are timeless, historic and thrilling.
Timeless
It doesn’t matter whether you take a classic model from the 60s, a 964 from the late 80s, a 993 from the following decade, or the 997 model of today: all 911s look great. Sure, the cynics will say that that’s because all 911s look exactly the same, but – you know what – that’s fine by us. In the same way that Jaeger-LeCoultre threw away their pencil after they’d drawn the Reverso, the 911 has remained all but unchanged from a styling perspective since launch. It looks gorgeous. Why would you tinker with it?
Just like the watch fan who buys a new Reverso today knows his timepiece will continue to look gorgeous and relevant when he hands it to his son in 30 years time, the lucky chap who walks into a Porsche dealership today can rest assured that his 911 will still look great for decades to come. The 911 is the most instantly recognisable and admired shape in motoring and that’s utterly deserved.
Historic
The second element of the 911’s huge appeal is its provenance, its heritage. We’ve just raved about the styling remaining all but unchanged. Under the skin of course, it’s a different story. The 911’s engineering has been evolved over the last 50 years. With every new model, the engineers in Stuttgart have pushed the boundaries of what’s possible with a rear-engined sports car and brought their flagship bang up-to-date with the latest tech and materials. Cutting-edge thinking wrapped in a body that harks back to the 60s and recalls racing achievements scattered across the last half a century? Now that’s historic.
Thrilling
We’re lucky enough to have an Audi S4 and a BMW M3 in the Prodigal garage. Great cars both. And – particularly the S4 – extremely safe cars, capable of getting you from A to B in all weather conditions at unbelievable speeds.
Until we spent a week with the 911, we’d started to believe that these were real sports cars. You see, you start to forget what it’s like to drive something that really thrills. Most cars don’t. But the 911 does. It makes you feel alive, it reminds you of the pure unadulterated joy of driving.
Can you remember that joy, that fun? When you first started driving you mother’s crappy beat-up Polo? Oh sure, the car sucked but the excitement was there with every drive, not least because you were so new to this that your journey was just as likely to end with the Polo hanging out of a hedge than back on your parents’ driveway.
Well, guess what? It’s kind of the same way with the 911. Except now it’s 20 years later and we really should know better.
We’re not suggesting the 911 is a dangerous car – the decades of iterative engineering improvements have certainly tamed the beast – but there’s no doubt that there remains a sense of danger about this thing. The power is so immense, the steering and suspension so communicative and the physics so challenging that driving it is like we imagine Neo feels as he gets unceremoniously plugged into the Matrix and straight into yet another action sequence. Hundreds of thousands of inputs, thoughts, emotions, calculations come racing into your mind almost against your will. Your hands start to get a little clammy and without there being a single damn thing you can do about it, without you even being aware of it, you start to smile. You can feel the road surface, feel the torque being delivered to the rear wheels and feel that nose twitching around looking for its next line. You’re in control but the possibility remains that if your attentions fades, that control could be lost in an instant.
You never feel completely safe in a 911 but you always, always feel alive. And that’s what seals its fate. The 911 is destined to stay at the top of our sports car shopping list for many years to come.
You never feel completely safe in a Porsche 911
Have you ever been hunting with dogs? Ever watched the nose of a well-bred hound as it darts around furiously in the air, desperate to pick up the scent? Then, seconds later it gets it; the nose is down and the dog is off like a bullet? That, ladies and gentlemen, is what it’s like [...]
4 Responses to “You never feel completely safe in a Porsche 911”
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dom
14 January 2012
And as if to answer your comments, Porsche respond with the all gizmo all dancing 991: PASM, Sports PASM for the hardcore (SPASM!), PDCC, torque vectoring… why it’s almost GT-R meets 997. Shame about the move to electrically assisted steering though…..
>>Bottom line: don’t just dip randomly into the 911 pool. Go straight for the GT3; only it is genuinely thrilling, historic and timeless.
Hmm I would respectfully disagree on this point – isn’t a standard 911 SC thrilling enough on the B4368 or a 993 RS timeless on the road to the coast from the Paul Richard circuit…..
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I’m with you, Dom.
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dom
14 January 2012
And as if to answer your comments, Porsche respond with the all gizmo all dancing 991: PASM, Sports PASM for the hardcore (SPASM!), PDCC, torque vectoring… why it’s almost GT-R meets 997. Shame about the move to electrically assisted steering though…..
Straight-Six
15 June 2010
No doubt about it: The Fool has gone gaga for the 911. It’s fair, given this steed has been with us for almost 50 years, but something continues to niggle me. Oh, that’s right, it’s the competition, folks!
Aside from the years Porsche came close to bankruptcy, the 911 has never been under such a widespread and sustained assault. The Nissan GT-R, the Audi R8, the Lotus Evora are all coming at it from different directions, maintaining the pressure on Stuttgart to keep coming up with yet more tricks.
And here’s where I beg to differ with the Fool. The very best enthusiast car mags out there (evo, definitely not car!) are increasingly indifferent to the base 911s and really only light up when it comes to the purest of the breed: the all-conquering, magical GT3.
Having personally driven a wide range of Porsches, from a lowly base Boxster all the way to a RUF RTurbo with 520-horsepower, it’s fair to say the compact 911 platform is almost infinitely adaptable and modifiable – hence the large number of tuners and increasingly ridiculous amounts of power. But like everything in life, the 911 is about equilibrium and it is the GT3 and GT3 RS that exemplify this best. That’s why they continue to represent the true heart and soul of Stuttgart and the relevance of a platform and set-up that should have died years ago (notice anyone else slinging their engines out back, rather than mounting them centrally?).
Bottom line: don’t just dip randomly into the 911 pool. Go straight for the GT3; only it is genuinely thrilling, historic and timeless.