Good Bye 996

[Porsche9]

Originally Posted by thstone

Apples vs BBQ pulled pork. They are so different, its not even a fruit vs fruit comparison!

The 996 is modern, fast, and very capable. In performance terms, it beats the crap out of almost all air cooled 911's. The 996 is comfortable, fairly reliable, and looks good.

The SC is a throwback to the Golden Age of Porsche. While the performance is close to an early base Boxster, the driving experience is incredibly involving because very little is filtered; the steering is manual and in corners it seems you can feel individual rocks and creases in the cement; there is no ABS or traction control or PASM, so your foot that has to modulate the brake and throttle properly; the suspension is comfortable but not plush; and the gear shifter is long and uncertain. All of this makes for an incredibly exciting drive!

At the same time, I can see why some of this experience was filtered out over the ensuring years. The SC is not particularly luxurious nor is it a comfortable long distance cruiser. It was designed and built to be a sports car for driving fast and not much more.

In many ways, this single purpose focus has been lost over the many years as sports cars have come to be many more things than just sporting and must meet many more needs than just to be driven fast. I'm not saying that comfort and luxury are bad things - I like a well appointed, comfortable, fast car as much as anyone.

But what I am saying, is that the SC represents a Porsche from a time when a sports car wasn't expected to be luxurious or comfortable. The cars were expected to be drivers cars and that meant that trade-offs had to be made and owners were expected to understand and appreciate those trade-offs.

And right now, that is the kind of sports car that I want to drive. If I need a more comfortable and luxurious car, I have a couple of BMW's to choose from already in the driveway.

With all of that being said, if I had to own only one car, it would still be a 986 Boxster. The Boxster has more "sports car" in its DNA than the 996 and its reasonably comfortable. Its almost the perfect trade off of a modern sports car for an owner who lives a modern life.

That's a great description of the SC. These cars even have their own distinct smells and sounds that can't be found in anything else. Coreseller, your 993 is still at it's core a 901, but with years of continued development which in my opinion gives you most of the experience the SC offers but has moved in the direction of doing more to try and appeal to more people while the performance envelope has increased dramaticly. Going from an SC to a 964 C4 I appreciated the extra grip, power, ABS, AC that worked, etc. but still got the air-cooled 911 experience. The 964 is the only car I owned that I would want to own again. I'd take a 993 too. For that to happen the last child will need to move out so I have the garage space.