[ported_head]

1. It’s a love story
We were curious about her quirks, then grew to love her. We didn’t realize how much until, in the late 1970s, we (insert popcorn here) almost lost her. So we fought to keep her and, in the end, (insert grinning/pregnant Julia Roberts here) love triumphed.

2. You can fit stuff in it
What doesn’t fit in the box-shaped boot under the nose might just fit or over the rear seats. The 996 retained the surprisingly useful folding half-backrest feature.

3. You can see stuff out of it
Meanwhile, generations of mid-engined Lamborghini and Ferrari drivers never knew there was another world behind the B-pillars.

4. It seats four people
Not four whole people, perhaps, but even the earlier models’ rear buckets offered accommodation emergencies. Like, say, Swedish identical twins.

5. It stayed air-cooled beyond the call of duty
Aside from its estranged cousin the Volkswagen Beetle in Mexico and the Tatra T700, the 911 was one of the very last air-cooled cars in production- let alone sports cars. Damn, we like that kind of cantankerousness.

6. The sky’s the limit
Like your high-performance sports car as a closed coupe, semi-covered Targa, or full open top Cabriolet? Can do.

7. It makes mistakes
The 911 has occasionally goofed-up over the years-afterthought ergonomics, the 2.7-litre’s head-stud problems, early 996 trim quality-but that proves it’s human.

8. It saved Porsche
For more than 12 months after the 968 and the 928 ceased production in 1995, the 911 was Porsche’s only model line.

9. The yuppie jokes
It’s 1988, and a 27-year-old futures trader has totaled his new 911 in a deep ditch. When the ambulance arrives, he’s trapped under the car, moaning ‘My Porsche! My Porsche!’ Annoyed, one of the medicos points out that the young man is in pretty bad shape himself; in fact, his left arm’s missing. The yuppie looks stunned, then begins wailing: ‘My Rolex! My Rolex!’

10. The other jokes
Fred is sitting out front of his house when his friend Bill pulls up in a new 911. Since neither man is especially bright, Fred is amazed, and asks his friend how he got the Porsche. ‘Well,’ Bill explains, ‘last night I went out and started dancing with this girl. She suggested we go for a drive, so we got into her Porsche and drove way out of town. Suddenly, she pulled over, ripped off all her clothes, and said: “You can have anything you want!” So I took the car.’
‘Good choice,’ Fred nods approvingly. ‘Her clothes probably wouldn’t have fitted you anyway’ *

11. It makes bad photographers look great

12. It makes bad drivers look worse

13. The sound
A snarling, huffing growl which, amazingly, wasn’t entirely lost in translation to
water-cooling.

14. The urban myths
Our favourite concerns the barely used 911 for sale on a yard for just a few thousand pounds. Seems a failed businessman had driven it into the forest and run a hosepipe from the exhaust through the window. They didn’t find the car for * *weeks…by which time the smell had got into the metal.

15. *There’s a 911 for all tastes
The launch of the C4S Cabriolet last autumn brought the number of *911 production variants to 11-the most in Porsche’s history. And that’s not counting the race-bound GT3 Cup and the GT3 RSR.

16. * It shouldn’t work
Every physicist will tell you that hanging an engine off a car’s coccyx will give it a polar moment of inertia to rival that of a conker on a string. So the 911 shouldn’t work. But it’s just so damn stubborn that it does.
*
* * *17. * *The resale value
For a lot of years, in some markets, used 911s pulled close to 100 percent retained values. Today, according to Germany’s Schwacke Automobile Index, a two-year-old 911 still heads the sports-coupe segment with the 76.77 percent retained value. * * * * * * * * * * *


18. * *It goes like stink
* * * * Right from the very first, 130-plus mph, 2.0 litre model, the 911 has always punched well above its weight-hlped even 40 years ago by overhead cams, dry-sump lubrication, a five-speed ‘box (naturally with Porsche’s invention, synchromesh) and four-wheel disc brakes. There’s never been a mainstream model larger than 3.6 litres.

19. It’s utterly erotic to wash
Just try slopping your sponge over a 911 sometime, particularly a pre-993 model. Dawdle a while in the inner creases of the front wing ‘pontoons’, or the taut contours of the rear end…er, where were we?

20. Galvanised metal bodies
Porsche introduced the galvanized steel body in 1971. This may have prompted the Great Rust Exodus to Italy during the same decade.

21. It gave the world the Targa roof
But Porsche trademarked the name.

22. Turbo
Don’t forget: aside from it’s gob-smacking performance (and free-smacking handling), the 1974 911 Turbo-aka the 930-was also one of Europe’s first turbocharged production cars, coming just a year after BMW’s short-lived 2002 Turbo.

23. Carrera
Just the word. Carrera. Even if you’ve never heard of the 1950s Mexican road race, it has to be one of the most emotive names in the automotive lexicon. Like Miura, but gnarlier.

24. The 996’s headlights
No, we can’t forgive the first 996’s being the sane as the Boxster’s-at the time, Porsche literally couldn’t afford to develop separate units-but we love the party trick of sliding out the whole unit at the flick of a lever. Unfortunately, so do thieves; US crooks are filching 996 lamps to recycle the HID bulbs and transformers.

25. The seats
Sleek, skinny and space-conscious, they look like they haven’t changed at all in 30 years. Miraculously, still among the most supportive and comfortable out there. (Nerdnote: seat maker Recaro was formerly Reutter Carosserien, which built bodies for Porsche’s 356, but switched to seats when it couldn’t commit the investment for the 911 bodies)

26. The family
If there were justice in the world, wouldn’t we all have been born into the family of a legendary automotive pioneer, easing effortlessly into various roles of genius engineers, highly strung designers, luxurycar distribution barons and megalomaniac auto industry figureheads? See you in Zell am See.

27. Other people love it, too
‘At the moment I’ve got it at home because I’ve only just bought it, and I like to go over it and rub it with a diaper. You know, like Ferris Bueller’s father’- knee surgeon, gentleman racer and a 911 GT2 owner.

28. It’s a proper Porsche
‘A Boxster is a Porsche with panties’- Ralphie, to a friend of Anthony Jnr, The Sopranos, series 4, episode 1.

29. And others just don’t get it
‘Whether he admits it or not, a man has been brought up to look money as a sign of his virility, a symbol of his power, a bigger phallic symbol than a Porsche’- Victoria Billings, in the 1974 feminist rant The Womansbook. Money? Bigger?

30. The 993
Thirty years’ worth of cockpit quirks and air-cooled attitude, but pinned down with incredibly effective multi-link rear and tweaked MacPherson front suspension.

31. The 1980s
It was open-slather on the hapless 911-a favoured target for the ‘styling enhancement specialists’

32. The wheels
Five-spoke alloy wheels have been a Porsche styling signature since the 911s of 1966, one of the first production cars to use alloy wheels (forged, not cast, by Fuchs). The 993 Turbo introduced hollow spokes, a 20 percent weight saving.

33. The 964’s ‘active’ rear wing
It whirred up electronically at 50 mph. But Porsche also provided a cockpit switch-curtailing ambitious cops who might otherwise cite an erect wing as evidence of speeding.

34. It’s won the Paris-Dakar rally raid
Twice.

35. It’s won the Monte Carlo rally
Three times.

36. You can buy what they race
Any well-heeled customer can walk up to Porsche’s Motorsport department and buy a GT3 Cup, or even an FIA GT-compatible, 1100 kg GT3 RSR, both built on the line at Zuffenhausen

37. Four-wheel drive
The 911 first tried it in’84, with the Dakar-winning 911/959. Within two years, the roadgoing 959 supercar introduced the complex, PSK torque-splitting 4wd system. By 1989, the humble 964 Carrera 4 was all-paw, and there’s been a C4 in the 911 family ever since.

38. The rivalry
‘I suppose he could have kept up, but driving one of those ###-engined Nazi slot cars must be a task at around 225 percent of the speed limit’- US humourist PJ O’Rourke describes and encounter with a 911 Turbo (resolved in favour of O’Rourke’s Ferrari 308 GTS) in *‘Ferrari Refutes the Decline of the West’, Car & Driver, June 1980.

39. The posters
It has provided at least two generations of males with an instant interior decorating strategy. That includes comedian (and Porsche-phile) Jerry Seinfeld, whose TV apartment famously features a poster of a leaping black 930

40. The whale-tails
The 911’s rear-end addenda began with the RS 2.7’s ducktail in 1972 has sprouted variously upwards and outwards since- even hydraulically. It’s such a key feature of the 911 profile that even moderate anoraks can identify the model from just a glimpse of wing.

41. Spotting kindred spirits
It’s just so clubby to have a 911 model derivative in your telephone number.

42. There aren’t a million of ‘em around
In fact, after 40 years, just over half a million of 911s been built (550,000, as at February 2004). Porsche built its one-millionth car, including all models, in July 1996. At the 911’s recent near-record rate of production, it’ll mark it’s own million around 2019.

43. They (almost) make cops look cool
Porsche has supplied autobahn patrol cars to various police forces since the 1950s, including almost every stripe of 911 (even the 930s). Too bad the German Polizei also has one of the ugliest colour combos going: white and green.

44. It’s aerodynamic
The current 996 has a Cd of 0.30 (versus 0.38 for the 1965 car), much better than you might think for a wedgy, high-performance coupe that needs enough lift management to deal with a top speed of 198 mph in the 996 GT2.

45. It’s timeless
A 25-year-old, 911 Turbo 3.3 parked in the high street can still stop you in your tracks.

46. It hasn’t run to fat
The 1965, short-wheelbase 2.0 litre 911 weighed 1080 kg;
24 years later, the 3.2 Carrera had only just topped 1200 kg. The 3.6 litre 964 C2 (1989) was 1347 kg; the 993 (1994) 1367 kg; and the current 996, 1370 kg…with exactly 2.5 times the horsepower of the 1965 car.

47. It’s a good size
Supercar performance in a sensible, city-friendly footprint. There’s even sensible ground clearance.

48. It’s a car, in spite of everything
‘You just treat it like an old truck; it’s just a glorified Volkswagen, after all’- professional photographer and a 3.2-litre Club Sport owner.

49. It always has one foot on the racetrack
‘There’s this understanding that you can buy a Porsche, you can drive it on the road and you can take it virtually unchanged onto the racetrack. There aren’t too many cars that can do that’- the knee surgeon, gentleman racer and 911 GT2 owner, again.

50. * *We still smile whenever we glance up at a digital clock and it’s reading 9:11

CAR,UK April 2004

PS: is this a record for the longest post ever on Team-BHP?

[S350L-E240]

lol ported head,
Saved it on my comp after reading a few,
but i cudnt comment if it's the longest,
gotta count the words for that,
The best i liked was


45. It’s timeless
A 25-year-old, 911 Turbo 3.3 parked in the high street can still stop you in your tracks.