Many of the cars featured on this website are there because they are iconic. In some way their manufacturers have been able to avoid the black-hole of indifference that snares run-of-the-mill cars. Sometimes the iconic status covers almost every car a manufacturer makes, as with Ferrari. Sometimes the magic may last only for a particular model in a particular year. Some of these cars we want for their sublime handling, others for their astonishing straight-line speed, once-in-a-decade styling or extreme rarity. The cars may be worth six-figure sums or be more modestly priced but either way they can have petrol-heads hooked at 20 paces. Just why we go weak at the knees for a ’65 Camaro SS, lust after a Lotus Exige or know without doubt that we would sell internal organs for a Murcielago LP640 is the subject of this series, starting with the question:
Why Do we Love Porsche?
Certainly for the early cars, the jewel-like 356s and 550s, with their low capacity rev-happy engines and natural flair for competition. These are the cars that began to build not just the sales success but also the track pedigree of Porsche by taking class wins at Le Mans along with victory in the Carerra Panamericana and the Targa Fiorio.
For the 911, which really does look (in the words of Douglas Adams) like a small, surfing whale on the rainy streets of Seattle. Which gives you the sensation that you own a piece of carefully mined rare metal that has consented to become car-shaped for a while. Which can be anything from the perfect curve and straight line of an early 911 to the vented, ducted, winged aggression of a 2009 GT3. Which actually looks good with a roll-cage installed in the back, the automotive equivalent of carrying off football boots with a suit. Which you know is no longer the tail-snapping handful it once was, but which a small part of you wishes might still be. Which has an engine note that suggests you have a baleful demon held captive in your car. Which came with Fuchs alloys, pinstriped seats, a whale-tail and the best haunches ever on a road-car.
For the 917 sports racer, which used 600bhp and balsa wood gearshift knobs to win again for Porsche at Le Mans. Which co-starred with Steve McQueen. Which came with Gulf livery, with Martini-psychedelic livery or, disproving the idea that Germans lack a sense of humor, painted to show the butcher’s cuts on a pig’s carcass and nicknamed ‘The Truffle Hunter of Zuffenhausen’. Which morphed into the 917/30 with Sunoco stripes and almost 2000bhp per ton in qualifying tune at the end of Can-Am.
And then there is the 928, which is still an astounding sight. Which meant that you could have a 5 liter, V8 Porsche and cook your shopping on the rear luggage deck at 150mph. Which meant that the European Car of the Year in 1978 was not the Ford Granada, but a 240bhp, luxury 2+2 sports coupe that by the early 80s would be one of the fastest cars sold in North America. Which has leather seats, all the toys and is 30 years old but with a flex of the right foot still squats, bellows and just goes.
The 1980s brought the 959, which was nothing like it’s school-boy dream garage rival, the Ferrrari F40 and paved the way for the tech-heavy, four-wheel drive supercars that we love today. Which could be the latest luxury toy to accompany the house in the Hollywood hills and the yacht in St Tropez or jacked-up, given the Rothmans livery and sent off to win the Paris-Dakar. And which always had a hint of the liquid-metal Terminator about it.
A decade later, the 968 proved that whilst Porsche could do four-figure power outputs, 12 cylinder monsters, V8 supercars and straight six legends, it could still produce a four-cylinder gem that was within the reach of everyman. Its handling is still used as a chat-forum benchmark. In Clubsport form the 968 reminded us that sometimes the option list could be used to take things out of a car to remember what the driving is all about.
Few of us would knock-back the chance to drive a Carrera GT, which took Porsche into modern hypercar territory. Which showed that if you happen to have a five and a half liter V10 engine lying around from a still-born sports racing project, the best thing to do is to build the rest of the car to go with it.
Even the Cayenne, which is the SUV people love to hate and hate to admit that they want is a part of Porsche’s allure. It’s Porsche-sushi in fact. At face value, raw fish wrapped in seaweed and coated with hot mustard doesn’t sound like it’ll work. A 5000lb, four-wheel drive SUV with a rear diffuser, around 500bhp and a 5-second 0-60 time doesn’t sound an obvious success either. Yet they are both wildly popular. Whilst for some the Cayenne is the answer to a question that nobody had asked, for others it’s evidence of perhaps the most significant element of Porsche’s success.
The reason we love Porsche as an automotive icon is not because it’s cars are the most beautiful or the most exclusive but because you can feel the engineering. We want Porsches because the DNA from cars built to win the most dangerous road races ever run, cars at home on the Mulsanne straight and cars that emerged from days in the African desert is part of your car when you approach that tight exit ramp on a wet, greasy I-405 on a Friday night.
No.7
