Modern Classic: Porsche 911

The 991 Porsche 911 is a favourite due to its silhouette. Photo: Porsche Newsroom

The iconic Porsche 911 was always one of my most desired cars, since I was a child.

I think this fascination started as my dad had a bright orange mid 1960’s Volkswagen Beetle and he once told me it was “kinda like a Porsche”.

I thought we were really lucky, as a family, to have a relative to the Porsche family.  Even though when I looked at the rusting Beetle I wasn’t sure I could see the connection.

Dad fuelled my fascination further by saying that his dream was to get the real thing – a Porsche – and the 911.

That made me nag dad for most of my childhood, as to whether he was soon going to buy a Porsche. It never happened, but as I left home, and into my adulthood, I had radar eyes for the Porsche 911, I thanked Dad for fuelling the dream to one day own one

To me, ownership of the 911 embodied a certain sort of cool, like wearing a business suit in trainers.   

Sure, if you were in this situation lucky enough to be able to afford the 911, you could have the Mercedes-Benz or BMW coupe, which aligned more with convention (and still does). 

Or you could dance with the devil and have a 911, trundling along somewhat irrelevantly in packed city traffic jams, but which you could take to country curves at the weekend for the ultimate in fun. Just be careful in the two-wheel-drive version on a wet road, especially if you threw in one of the early turbos.

I watched the evolution of the 911s, especially through the 997 era, and finally on 15 September 2011 at the Frankfurt motor show, the seventh generation Porsche 911 coupe was revealed. 

The Porsche 911 convertible has an upright look. Photo: Porsche Newsroom

Known as the 991 Porsche, it was an entirely fresh platform and the third all new platform since 1963 (the other being the 996 in 1999).

For the 991, the wheelbase grew by 100mm and length increased by 70mm. High strength steel and better use of aluminium, dropped the weight when compared to the 997 and a seven-speed PDK (Porsche Doppelkupplung) transmission was introduced.

As an obsessive reader of car scoop sites, in early 2012 pictures started to break of the 991 911 cabriolet and that got me excited.

I’d always loved convertibles, but the 997 convertible had an upright look that disturbed the sleekness of the swept back 911. But the 991 corrected this as for the first time in Porsche’s history the convertible now adopting the proper 911 silhouette.

A sophisticated, sleek, convertible roof, featuring four solid panels, including a heated glass screen, was now the 991 911 convertible.

It was a beautiful car and the perfect evolution of not only the 911 shape but perhaps now one of the most stunning convertibles in the world.

In 2013, more than two and half decades after my love of Porsches began, after Dad’s beetle story, I would buy my first and (at this stage) only Porsche. 

A GT silver 991 911S Cabriolet.   

I fell in love with it straight away. Its 3.8 horizontally opposed six engine with sports exhaust, with the top down and on twisty mountain roads, lived up my fantasy of what it might be like owning a Porsche. 

I admired the lines of the 991 911 convertible and I felt the black canvas top with the GT silver paint and red brake calipers set it off perfectly. 

I loved the agility of the car with its lightweight. It felt like a go-cart. Though, the convertible wasn’t as practical in changeable New Zealand weather as I hoped nor was the experience on frequent gravel roads I encountered on my way to my farm.

The only colour I might have been even more tempted to have tried was black on black. However the 2km of dirt road down to Parihoa ruled out that colour option. 

I had three glorious years with the 991 911 convertible until one day I spontaneously traded it, at 30,000kms, for an Aston Martin DB11.  

I knew immediately I had made a mistake and should have kept the Porsche too. Two sports cars were extravagant. I called the dealer, Mark Wilson at Gilltrap Prestige, and he said I could have it back if I liked. I chose to let him keep it. 

I have pined for it ever since. And since selling it the only 991 Convertible I have seen come up on TradeMe is ... mine. Twice! Each time it has come up I have watched the kilometres climb. Recently it appeared with 58,000km and was sold again just last week.

Oh and a black on black 2013 991 911 Convertible appeared last week.  The first one I have seen other than my former silver one.