Background
The Porsche 911 first broke cover in 1963, morphing over the years from the svelte, elfin Audrey Hepburn of the sports car world into the current Serena Williams-esque ballistic bruiser beloved of city traders, nouveau riche entrepreneurs, and mid-life crisis divorcees.
While the early cars were slow and fragile – and the later cars very fast and almost indestructible – many enthusiasts believe that the models from the seventies and eighties are the purest evocation. These are the cars that best balance classic looks with decent performance and better-than-average reliability – and a well-fettled 911 is a very quick and dependable car indeed.
And you can forget the car’s notoriety for spitting drivers off the road backwards; while the flat-six, air-cooled (technically oil-cooled, but who’s quibbling?) aluminium engine may hang ponderously behind the rear axle line, the handling is surprisingly benign – as long as you don’t do anything really silly, obviously…
The 3.2-litre Carrera, offered only between 1984 and 1989, is impressively quick, reaching 60mph in 5.4 seconds and continuing on to a top speed of 150mph courtesy of its 234bhp engine.
This incarnation of the 911 is still relatively lightweight compared to later cars and gets by with delicate 205/55 R16 front tyres, offering better-balanced handling and sublime steering feedback, plus vented disc brakes all round for serious stopping power. It sounds fantastic too; the absence of a water jacket means the raw, almost unsilenced engine blares directly behind you, accompanied by one of the world’s great exhaust notes.
The interior is practically bombproof, which helps to excuse its occasionally wayward ergonomics. It’s also very comfortable, with supportive seats and one of the best driving positions in the business. It even offers four-up motoring – although the rear seat is best reserved for pre-teen children rather than fully grown adults.







