It seems everyone is celebrating anniversaries this year: it’s Aston’s hundredth, Lamborghini’s fiftieth, Ford Mustang’s fiftieth, Chevy Corvette’s sixtieth – and Tesla just turned ten or something. It’s been a little out of hand, frankly, all these forced marketing festivities, but if we had to pick one milestone to really celebrate hard and party all night, the Porsche 911 would be at the top of our list.
Get ready for a major 911 blowout bash at next week’s Frankfurt Motor Show. It was on September 12 back in 1963 at this very show where Porsche unveiled its “901″ painted in a rather boring shade of beige. Though drably finished, the car caused a worldwide frenzy in the budding German sports car sphere.
There have been non-stop “50th Anniversary 911″ parties since January 1st in every corner of the globe. We recently attended what is likely the best of them all, a sort of hands-on driving party of every 911 generation at the very test track that makes these cars what they are – the seemingly humble circuit out behind Porsche’s skunkworks at Weissach in Germany. It might be small, but it’s the perfect venue for quickly wringing out both Porsches and the loose nut behind the wheel.
An admission: All 911 generations were on hand, but we decided to respectfully skip both the 997 and 991. We took the day as more of an opportunity to rediscover the roots of 911 passion, especially with our limited time and several other journalists clamoring for drives. So, we drove original 911s, 930s, a 964, a couple of 993 variants, and one of the earliest water-cooled 996 models.
Porsche first handed us the keys to a red 402-horsepower (all figures SAE) 993 Turbo 3.6 coupe from 1995. This was the first 911 Turbo to come with two turbochargers and permanent all-wheel drive, and we piloted this gem on the first leg of our journey to Weissach.
This first production version of all-wheel drive for the 911 was, well, only okay. It offered lots of push through hot corners, but thanks in no small part to the multi-link rear suspension that debuted on this generation, we had one of our favorite joy rides of all time. The 993 may also be the most beautiful 911 ever, and the mating of the M64/60 flat-six to the six-speed Getrag G50 manual transmission turned this Turbo into a modern marvel. We loved this first leg of our drive – the sun was out and the Turbo 3.6 was just loving the clear air. How could it get any better than a romp in one of Porsche’s last air-cooled flat-sixes?
At our midpoint stop in a medieval Swabian town center that looked like it was right out of a Hollywood film, we quickly grabbed the keys to another car, a Clay Red 1967 911 2.0 Targa. It’s such an important car, and a surprising number of people still believe the cabriolet/convertible preceded the Targa and don’t really know why the Targa top was created.
Ragtop 911s, as Porsche stalkers know, didn’t appear until 1982. The earlier Targa, on the other hand, was created specifically in response to new North American crash regulations for rollover passenger safety – not because of any specific spontaneous Porsche aesthetic invention. Playing with this sweet little ’67 and its original 128-hp flat-six was brilliant. We enjoyed the four-speed 901 gearbox, though we kind of missed that insidious dog-leg first gear of the five-speed factory conversion. Owners of classic 911s know that the original four-speed (or the five also) can frequently be a bit of a dog to deal with, but we loved it in this car. There was no loose play at all in the steering rack, either, a common foible that many owners dismiss as charming. It isn’t.
After driving the second stint all the way to Porsche Tech Heaven at the gates of Weissach, we were then instructed to bring the cars onto the test track itself. We were shortly told to drive like moonshine runners for several laps using these same classic cars we had brought over from Zuffenhausen. In the past, we’ve driven this track as if on fire, but those were new models and these were cars from Porsche’s own museum collection. Remarkable.
Driving 50 years of Porsche 911 history
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