Monday 23 January 2012

Why the 993 is the Star Wars generation's supercar

'That's the sort 911 I'd want', said a skater-looking dude in his early 30s to an unimpressed female companion, as they walked past my friend’s 993 near Balham Tube Station. He didn't look like a 'Porsche person', and thankfully, neither does the driver. I really didn't pay much attention, only hearing as one of our kids in the back insisted we had the sunroof open. A week later after another comment in a London street, this time with all manner of 993-related questions thrown-in about the car, it reminds me of ten years ago, when I bought a '72 911 2.4S just as they became unobtainable to anyone except the deep pocketed 40-50 year-old car collectors. Has my friend recently purchased the most 'desirable' 911 for the next generation of Porsche enthusiasts, the sports car for the generation 'young-ish dad'?

It's not that this 993 is a particularly 'special' 911 - it's not a limited edition, an RS or turbo or anything, my 993 911 Carrera, apart from being a Varioram model (their then-new variable air-intake volume device) is a bog-standard two-wheel drive, manual old-shaped, air-cooled 911 - a sup'd-up beetlebug that's nearly 16 years old. But that's, I'm realising, exactly the point.

OK, so the attraction of trouble-free motoring when you have got a busy job, young kids and a mortgage is a plus for my lucky friend, but it's not just the guarantee that everything 15 years old in it will work all the time (it has a Heath Robinson toggle switch for everything - no computer panel to go wrong etc). More than this, it's a taste thing, just the feeling that this is not the model before-the-model before the last, you know, the nearly 'new one'... it is the realisation that it is not a trying to be a new car. In our minds at The Car Stalker, the 993 is simply just a classic now - and a full stop in its old evolutionary lineage.

The last thick-gauged steel skinned, air-cooled, door clunking, hand made, proper Swiss army knife quality Germanic sports car made before Porsche became a mass manufacturer (and a capital market investor of considerable size in the Noughties). It epitomises pub conversation contradictions of what could be cast as 'masculine engineering' over the more effeminate 'design ethos' in car production, but is also small and unassuming enough to not look like a great big Zennon-lit penis extension. 1994-97 was as far as they could go with developing a 911 within its modest 1960s body shell, before its sides split, and the mechanical boxer unit, along with Porsche's dwindling fortunes, burst out over its widened rear haunches.

Obviously, the noise, pollution, hand-made production costs, not to mention its diminutive size in the future power and size arms race (most hatchbacks do 170 MPH and 0-60 in just about six seconds these days), reminds us of its age but also the nostalgia for an era when the modest 'in the know' fanfare for Stuttgart's track-side tech, was tried and tested on a new production vehicle.

Just my imagination? Well, time will tell on the 'price' side, but judging by a current bog-standard 4 wheel-drive 1996 example at Monks Heath going for a tidy £47,000, anyone finding one of the many good, well-looked after examples (even with stellar mileage) at the mid £20k mark will be making a superb investment, and will prob have a lot of fun driving it too. Did I forget to mention, it's one of the most alive, responsive sports cars most experts have driven? All of that, plus street cred and room for the kids (and their light-sabres) in the back, it seems there is no darkside in the future Porsche value wars for the 993.