Innehållsförteckning för No. 202 från Total 911

“This Cup-engined GT3 significantly improves on the outgoing 991.2” Next year we’ll be celebrating half a century of 911 Rennsports. You can expect Porsche to fully capitalise on the occasion by releasing a new GT3 RS, most likely with help from Porsche Exclusive. Before that however, we need a GT3 on which to base said RS, which has duly – and finally – arrived in 992 form. Of course, you already know most of the details for the incoming GT3, thanks to our first look of a disguised prototype with its creator Andreas Preuninger in issue 199. Now officially revealed in all its glory (including that striking Shark blue launch colour), we can at last bring you confirmed performance stats and Nürburgring lap times, both of which mark this Cup-engined…

356, G-body, 964, 997, 991. Random names and numbers to some, these are of course the generations and internal model codes for one of Porsche’s most revered product lines: Speedster. This journey to what is arguably the ultimate expression of topless sports car began in 1952 with the 356 1500 America Roadster. Widely seen as the forefather of the Porsche Speedster, it flopped, incidentally, after costing more to make than sell, driving coach builder Heuer-Glaser to bankruptcy in the process. “Clearly used and adored by Butzi, the Speedster wears 2,065 kilometres on its clock today” Lessons were learned, with production moving in-house at Porsche, the Speedster now a cut-down version of the Cabriolet and running off the same production line as other 356s. In 1954, the Porsche Speedster as we…

Porsche might never have discovered this 901 – briefly the name for the 911 – had it not been for reality TV series Trödeltrupp, a kind of German Cash In The Attic. An elderly East German guy got in touch with news of an old 911 in a barn, and the show contacted Alexander Klein at the Porsche Museum. The VIN number, 300057, made him stop like his lottery numbers just came in. “I knew this was a very, very early car,” he says – actually car number 55, and believed to be the last-ever 901. Third keeper Bernd Ibold had run it as a service car for his garage business to reach customers, worked on it himself, and couldn’t get parts in East Germany. It was in a sorry…

911s in the data file are organised in rows according to release date, beginning with the very first model in 1964. Many models were available in Coupe, Targa and Cabriolet forms, with the option of automatic transmission. Here, data has been provided from the Coupe variants unless stated. All data here has been compiled, where possible, from Porsche’s own figures. General valuations This reflects the general market trend for a model’susedvaluecompared to the previous financial quarter. The review for 2021 Q2 will be April. The review for 2021 Q1 was January. Ratings Each model is rated out of five in ourhalf-starsystemaccording totheirperformance,handling, appearanceanddesirability.…

One of the benefits in switching from air to water-cooling on the 911 was a quick advance in onboard temperature regulation. No longer having to rely on heat exchangers to warm the cabin, the 911’s temperature regulation system became more powerful and effective, though it’s still to this day managed by interior temperature sensors, a very basic example of which debuted way back on the 911SC (you’ll find it between both sun visors). In a Coupe (or, indeed, a Targa or Cabriolet with the roof up) the interior temperature sensor remains what Porsche describes as the “central control variable”, today’s advanced systems ensuring effective temperature regulation inside the vehicle. However in an outside environment, there are many new factors which come into play. Porsche has thus developed its climate control…

Is Porsche about to enter the safari game? Just weeks after Singer Vehicle Design released its 964-based All-terrain Competition Study, Total 911’s spies captured this raised 992 mule rolling around the outskirts of the Porsche development facility at Weissach. This latest sighting adds fuel to the fire with rumours gathering pace that Porsche could be looking to explore the off-road market with its iconic 911 sports car. More information can be found on page 8.…

The Porsche 911 has gotten so big – or has it? Dear Sir, “It’s so big!” That’s what many say about the latest generation of the Porsche 911. But compared to other long-running models in the car world, is it really? To find out, let’s size up the 911 and a few other automotive icons and see how they compare relative to their predecessors. Porsche unveiled the 901, soon thereafter renamed the 911, at the Frankfurt Auto Show in Sept 1963. Like the Porsche 356 that preceded it, and the Volkswagen Beetle before that, the 911’s engine placement behind the rear axle allows for a space-efficient packaging of the mechanicals, and frees up cabin space for occupants. Despite being a sports car, the 911 is a 2+2, which means it…

356 PRODUCTION YEARS: 1954-58 PRODUCTION NUMBERS: 3,676 Porsche’s Speedster concept owes much to Max Hoffman, the storied importer of Porsche sports cars to the United States, which remains an important territory for the brand today. Hoffman told Ferry Porsche that for his brand to succeed in the US, it needed a smaller, simpler sports car that was priced more competitively than the 356 range of the time. The Porsche Speedster was duly born with just two bucket seats in an otherwise spartan interior. Its design concept would resonate with future designs of the Porsche Speedster as it joined the 911 family tree. 3.2 Carrera PRODUCTION YEARS: 1989 PRODUCTION NUMBERS: 2,274 Project managed by designer Ben Dimson, the first 911 Speedster was originally conceived for the 964 generation but brought forward…

HISTORY AND TECH The GTS badge appeared fleetingly in 2011 on the run-out 997 and gave an intriguing preview of what Porsche was intending, but it was with the 991.1 GTS that Zuffenhausen really established ‘GTS’ as a sub category in its own right. 911 project manager August Achleitner had described the GTS as “corresponding to customer demand for a sporting yet comfortable Porsche.” In terms of price and performance the GTS slotted neatly between the Carrera S and GT3, and Porsche made the GTS all the more attractive by endowing it with options which, if all specified on the Carrera S, would have come to significantly more than the list price of the GTS. During its short production run, the 991.1 GTS had garnered much praise and the challenge…

Ron Lang Ashland, Oregon @ronlangsport Model 2.4S Year 1972 Acquired 2018 Model 930 3.3 Year 1982 Acquired 2019 Model 964 CARRERA 2 REIMAGINED BY SINGER Year 1991 Acquired 2018 Model 964 C4 SAFARI Year 1991 Acquired 2018 Model 993 TURBO Year 1997 Acquired 2015 Model 997.1 TURBO Year 2007 Acquired 2020 Model 997.2 GT3 RS 3.8 Year 2011 Acquired 2016 Model 991.2 CARRERA 4S Year 2017 Acquired 2017 Now I think I finally ‘get it’ about classic 911s. Ignorance about the classic 911 experience has been a gaping hole in my rear-engined Porsche fantasies. I mistakenly thought that these older cars were primarily about their looks and the nostalgia of their history. I thought that they needed to be modified to provide some thrills behind the wheel. The modifying to…

It’s one of the great conundrums of the air-cooled world: why isn’t the 3.2 Carrera Clubsport widely revered as one of the most collectible classics? It certainly seems to have all the makings of a collector’s dream: a competition road car that’s lighter than standard, just 340 examples were produced for worldwide markets (only 53 of which were right-hand drive). That’s nearly five times rarer than the 2.7 Carrera RS, for reference, and the 3.2 Clubsport also knocks off seven tenths of a second in the 0-62mph sprint compared to Porsche’s iconic performance classic. Sure, it might not have the fabled ‘Rennsport’ moniker attached to it, but the fact remains the Clubsport was the Leichtbau 911 of the 1980s, the car built especially for those who wanted to take their…

Victor Henry Elford is one of the greatest British racing drivers of all time, his list of career highlights long, his antics legendary across both sports car and single seater racing, having had spells in rallying, endurance racing, and even Formula One. His career would have a profound impact on the fortunes of a small sports car manufacturer in Stuttgart, their combined success parachuting Porsche – and its new 911 in particular – into the upper echelons of sporting repute, a lofty position in motordom where it remains to this day. Nicknamed ‘Quick Vic’ (you hardly need to guess why), it was Elford who ignited his own Porsche career in 1966 by approaching motorsport manager, Huschke von Hanstein, and asking to run a 911 for an upcoming rally. Von Hanstein…

New Porsche safari prototype spied Lifted 992 sighting accelerates rumours of bizarre new 911 Total 911’s spies have captured an unusual-looking prototype in testing, adding to rumours that Porsche could be about to offer its 911 in safari specification. The mule in our pictures, seen on public roads around Weissach, features a significantly raised ride height and chunky tyres enclosed by tacked-on wheel arch extensions at all four corners. This latest sighting is a development of a mule seen pounding the Nürburgring in October 2020 with increased ground clearance and pronounced wheel arches. The rear bumper on this latest sighting is showing a new design with the rear licence plate recess moved up from its current home in the 992 range, allowing for the customary twin Sports exhaust pipes to…

The cliché has it that all Porsche 911s look the same, and in truth the iconic sports car has evolved mostly gently throughout its near six decades in continuous production, if with a couple of sizeable leaps along the way. But these two bookends prove just how far the 911 has come in its eight generations: an extremely early example from 1964 and the very latest 992-generation Carrera S. While so much is radically different, from performance to size and technology to weight, the idiosyncratic fundamentals of the 911’s mechanical specification remain unchanged – flat six engine, rear-wheel drive, heavily rear-biased weight distribution – so this is the ideal opportunity to find out if any of the early 911 feel and character still lives on in the new 992. It’s…

Atrawl through automotive magazines and websites will quickly find often vociferous debates about the merits of manual versus automatic gearboxes, and nowhere is that more true than in the world of sports cars. Naturally, the 911 hasn’t been immune from such debates, fuelled in some areas by Porsche’s decision to equip some models only with the PDK transmission (introduced with the 997.2 generation), the 997 Turbo S and 991.1 GT3 being cases in point. That’s a more recent issue, though, because our focus here is on the transmission that introduced a proper automatic (as opposed to the Sportomatic launched in 1967 – a manual ‘box with the clutch operated via a micro-switch in the gear lever) to the Neunelfer for the first time. Tiptronic debuted in a model that was…

991 Carrera T At around £75,000, a ‘less is more’ 911 from the classic Porsche mould, the Carrera T appeared in MY 2018. It had the standard 370bhp 991.2 engine and its own cloth seats, but still cost about £8,000 more than a Carrera, yet its relative simplicity seemed to confer it with a distinct identity. 991.1 Turbo S £85,000 nets a handsomely specified 26,000-mile 2013 model for the buyer who might prefer the ‘Turbo’ to the merely turbocharged GTS. The S always gave the Porsche Turbo a cachet, but these lack the finesse of the 991.2 Carrera GTS's dynamic abilities. 992 Carrera £95,000 buys a virtually new 992 and an altogether more advanced and technologically challenging Porsche than the 991.2, which may not be entirely to older tastes. It's…

Our story begins in the 1990s. André Bezuidenhout had dipped his toes in the world of amateur motor racing, and was soon advised to buy a Porsche 911 for competition use. With little experience at the time, he crashed a converted 911T in spectacular fashion at the old Kyalami Circuit in Johannesburg, South Africa. Bezuidenhout however is a fast learner, and today he has successfully peddled many a special 911, both for road and race. At the 2020 Kyalami 9-Hour he won the Pro-Am category in a Porsche 991.2 GT3 R, in the process achieving one of his lifelong dreams: competing in the storied 9-Hour of his homeland. It’s been quite a journey, for both man and machine. Going back to his early career, Bezuidenhout explains his adventures in that…

Data file Full specs, ratings and market values of every Porsche 911 model, including the water-cooled GT3 range, can be found beginning on Plus Showroom Looking for a new 911? The classifieds from our independent specialist partners are the first place you should start your search Servicing & tuning Get the very best from your Porsche 911 with the help of our selected performance and maintenance specialists Porsche lifestyle Helping you make the right lifestyle choices to complement you and your 911. Don’t just drive Porsche, live the brand Insurance & finance Get your Porsche covered with the best insurance deals for road and track to ensure happy, safe motoring…