Quote:
Originally Posted by maytag
Interesting thread.
Here's an additional perspective:
In the '80's, I drove some of the newish models and was do disenchanted that it turned me off to Porsche for 3 decades. I've been a harsh critic of what Porsche thinks a good handling car feels like for a long time, based on those '70's and '80's air cooled Porsches. It seemed that Porsche wanted to simply continue to update their flawed design for all those years. Truly; you could walk me through a paddock and I wouldn't be able to tell a 70's 911 from a 90's 911, because Porsche was hell-bent on providing the same old P.O.S. to the world, and the masses just kept eating it up and raving about it.
Or so I thought.
Then I drove the 986 (a car I had dismissed along with everybody else), and couldn't quit giggling. I realized then that I was wrong, and needed to open my eyes a little bit. Since then, I've driven some fantastic Porsches, from Cayman GT4's to a GT3RS, and some other tasty things in between. Fantastic cars.
They still don't tick the box for me, emotionally. They don't feel particularly "special". They're very good at what they do, but there's little emotion involved in it.
And the air-cooled cars? Still terrible. Horrible, poor-performing buckets of "#metoo" for the academia-types (with patches on the elbows of their tweed blazers) who wouldn't know a good-performing car if it stood up and spoke Italian to them.
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Umm I call BS. I know personal perception is colored by life experience, but the 80s ? really? The most depressing decade of automotive junk ever?
What were you comparing Porsche to that you felt was so superior? American iron with the smog choked engines that were lucky to survive to 100k miles? The corvette finally in 85 put a control arm that wasn't a direct descendant of a 56 Olds. Jaguar had the glorious XJS that was like living in California, you didn't know when the electric was going to fail. Italian cars were so finicky if you drove them twice in a month you had to check them into a shop for rehab?
SO please to not sound like the snooty patched sleeve professor and believe me I do like your new car but the last jab of speaking Italian was a bit much.
While Porsche had some troubles ( catalytic converters under the cylinders, magnesium cases that spit out studs like sunflower seed shells and with a climate control system that still sucked) At least they were reliable and with bodies now being galvanize zinc dipped they were built for the long haul. AND if you really had a death wish or just enjoyed being terrified you could buy a turbo and turn both sides of the apex into white knuckle thrills.
