Now for most of us it’s not much of a stretch to see the Porsche 911 as a great car. But why the 911SC, which is neither the fastest, nor the most exclusive of the 911 clan. Well there are two reasons. Firstly, without the SC there may well not have been any more Turbos, Carrera 2s or GT3s and secondly, because I’ve just bought one and I love it.
So to begin with the SC’s claim to be the car that saved the 911. In the 1970s the western world in particular was limping through a bruising encounter with two energy crises. In 1978, when the SC was launched, oil prices were edging up towards their 1979 peak that would follow the departure of the Shah from Iran and the production shortages that would follow.
Against this background, Porsche were quietly refining themselves. Though what they were producing was the best version yet of a car that was already some 15 years old. The new car was an amalgam of some of the best bits from cars that had come before together with a sprinkling of improvements. The engine block from the 1975 Turbo went into the mix, along with the flared body from the earlier ’74 Carrera. Galvanised bodies were now par for the course and creature comforts like electric windows and upgraded heating and ventilation joined the party.
Now a 1978 Porsche 911SC was producing only around 180bhp, which wasn’t a jaw-dropping amount even 30 years ago. The Ferrari 308 GT4, which was nearing the end of its production run by 1978, could deliver a healthy 230-250hp from its 3.0 litre V8, whilst a Lamborghini Urraco in P300 form could offer around 265 bhp, though it too was not long for the world. Back in Blighty at least the Lotus Esprit wasn’t kicking sand in the Porsche’s face. It’s 2.0 litre, four cylinder engine could only summon up around 160hp and it would take the so-called “Essex” Esprit Turbos of 1980 to break the 200 bhp mark.
However, with fuel prices escalating, potential high-end sports car owners may have been beginning to baulk at the though of feeding thirsty and somewhat temperamental Italian V8s. The domination of Le Mans by Porsche with the 917, the 935 and the 936 throughout the decade may also have been crossing some people’s minds.
But despite the motorsport credentials, and the well chosen specs, the SC would also need the personal intervention of Peter Schutz, CEO of Porsche between 1981 and 1987. By the end of the 1970s Porsche had decided to replace the 911 with the new 928 but 1980 saw slow take-up for the new cars. Schutz’s decision to extend the production run of the 911 (according to some accounts by taking a marker pen and extending the line on a chart off the paper and onto the wall of a colleague’s office) would turn out to be a wise one. Almost 60,000 SCs were sold in the 5 years it was in production. The rest, as they say, is history.
So why do I love the SC? Well partly for the looks. To my eye the SC is one of the best looking of all the 911 variants. It’s lost a little of the delicacy of the earlier models and gained a little useful muscle mass in my view. The trademark flared haunches have arrived but have not yet become something for Fergie to sing about. The wings, that from the drivers seat resemble the torpedo tubes on a WW2 PT boat (my car, my fantasy ok...) provide the classic 911 ‘face’. The wonderful curve form the top of the windscreen down to the rear bumper is one of the greatest styling features ever for me and on the SC it’s not been diluted by the need to increase the cars dimension to incorporate ever more toys and safety equipment. I actually went to the dealership with the intention of buying a Lotus Elise, not an ugly looking car by any stretch of the imagination. That I came away with a 30 year old Porsche says something about it’s continued visual impact.
But the driving experience is also key to the SC’s hero status. No the 911 doesn’t have any of the air intakes, the various gills, slots and mirror appendages that would allow me to deploy active downforce on the way back from the newsagents with some milk. But, when you turn the key you are introduced to something even better.
Now, even at idle an old 911 makes, to my ears, a wonderfully menacing, bass-thump. In fact I was childishly delighted to have it set off the car alarm on a neighbouring Toyota in a multi-story carpark last week. But when it hits 4500 rpm, you realise that this is only speed at which you will now use it. Approaching a tight 25 mph motorway exit, you get your braking out of the way, then change down early, from 3rd into second, pausing slightly on your way through neutral so the gearbox has time to decide that it will indeed let you have the gear. You sort of request your next gear from this car, gentle backwards pressure on the lever until you’re approved. You can feel the rear tyres hook up, the back of the car hunker down a shade and then as you feed in the power, the wailing starts...It’s not a big car, the 911, and at moments like this the power and weight of the that flat-six seem to dominate the cabin.
We’ve all been ‘educated’ to know that a rear-engined Porsche is now about as dangerous as Miley Cyrus. We know its no longer the tail-snapping handful it once was, but perhaps a small part of us wishes it might still be. When the car has an engine note that suggests you have a baleful demon held captive behind the rear seats, and comes from the days before Porsche Stability Control, it’s like getting to look behind the facade for a second. Like stroking one of those ‘tame’ lions that have been raised by humans and which once in a while will remember that you could be food.
Sure inside there’s a world of idiosyncratic Germanic wonder. Heater controls are on the floor and also on the dash, with another bit stuck on top of the cassette storage thing for good measure. The wiper controls are on a stalk and on a little twisty dial above one of the dials and the pedals stick up out of the floor. But that doesn’t matter. Someone once described older 911s to me as like small aircraft. When you start them up or drive slowly, they grumble and vibrate and make you sweat because there’s no power steering and first gear’s a sod when cold. Then you get a little heat into the systems, your speed comes up, the vibrates seem to cancel each other out, the steering lightens to become a tactile delight and you’re flying.
So there it is. The 911SC. Part of the reason you can still buy a 911 today. And still one of the world’s greatest sportcars.
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