50 Jahre 911
The swan song of the 996 Porsche 911 was the “ 40 Jahre 911“, designed to commemorate the car’s 40th anniversary. Although it was a rear-drive, naturally aspirated Carrera, it shared the widebody look of the all-wheel drive and turbo cars, and inspired legions of badge concious buyers to check the option box the the “911” badge, rather than suffer the indignity of having “Carrera” without an accompanying “S”.
Now that the 911 is 50 years old, Porsche is introducing…you guessed it, the 50 Jahre 911, officially dubbed the “ Porsche 911 50 Years Edition.” It follows the same rear-drive-that-looks-like-a-C4 formula, and there are retro touches abound. An old-school 911 badge, faux-Fuchs wheels and tartan seat fabric have all been deployed. Sadly, manual steering was decided to be too retro.
More by Derek Kreindler
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This article does have a mistake: The anniversary 996 had a C4S front end and a special silver paint, but remained a narrow body. (Not the wide-body look mentioned in this article). There were the special silver front grills and a few other items. It also had a few more horsepower and unique polished wheels.
Clarkson was absolutely right: "Porsche design. The least a man can get." How would the automotive press treat an American manufacturer that had the audacity to keep essentially the same design in service for half a century? Anyone? But because it's Porsche, they're allowed to get away with it.
It just hit me (yes, I'm a tad slow)...having rented a VW Beetle a few weeks ago I just realized how much the 911 DOES look like a Beetle. And here I've been fighting that nugget of knowledge for decades.
It's hard for a rear-engined 911 not to look like a rear-engined car, in the same way that it's hard for a front-engined Corvette not to look like a front-engined car. But while this dictates a limit on the possible profiles the car can take, it's not a limit defined by a single absolute shape... as you can see in the differences between the 911, the Beetle, the Renault Alpine (which, IMHO, is still twenty times sexier than the 911), the DeLorean and the Corvair. In the years since it was first released, the Corvette has mutated greatly. Even though the styling was finally set in stone by the Stingray, further Corvettes have moved on, changing details as needed, keeping only certain styling cues. The 911, on the other hand, is so steeped in its own history that Porsche only dared change the headlights once, then quickly changed them back after people raised a stink. The profile has mutated to take into account aerodynamics and packaging concerns, but Porsche has very little wiggle room when it comes to the 911's design. And this is not solely due to the rear-engined layout.