Table of contents for No. 228 in Total 911

I’ve been doing some digging for a recent 9WERKS online article regarding the lightest water-cooled 911s. Now Porsche has long subscribed to the idea of lighter sports cars being able to upset more powerful brethren on the race track, and that’s why air-cooled 911s have always been famously lightweight. However, the introduction of water-cooling in 1997 brought extra fluids on board the 911, not to mention all the additional plumbing required for it. That development, in addition to ever-tighter safety legislation, has seen the 911 gradually gain in mass over the years. “The most featherlight Porsche 911 of the water-cooled era is, in fact, the very first” But which is the lightest 911 of the modern era? The answer may well surprise you, for it’s not a GT product from…

Interesting and eclectic 911s. That’s our monthly goal with Spotted: to highlight 911s for sale that are a bit different from the norm. This month’s entry is certainly that, and no, it’s not an autocorrect error in the search bar when typing ‘eclectic’, either. The 911 shown above is electric, which might have some of you turning the page already, but bear with us. The 911’s always been a bit of a Meccano set of components that enables not only Porsche itself, but also a countless number of specialists, to create exactly the car they want. You’d not be concerned, then, if this beautifully clean-looking Grand Prix white ’89 Carrera was powered by a 964’s or 993’s flat six, or featured some hot cams, fruity carbs, a bigger capacity or…

HISTORY AND TECH Until the Carrera 2.7 RS debuted in 1973, the S was the flagship of the 911 range. Launched in 1968 (for Europe only – Americans had to make do with the similar spec but less-powerful 911L), it used an uprated 2.0-litre engine with a higher compression ratio and twin Weber carburettors. The result was 160hp – an extra 30hp over the mid-range 911E – and was able to achieve 0-62mph in a swift 8.0 seconds. Only the ultra-rare 911R went quicker. Available in Coupe and Targa body styles, the S was the first 911 to wear Fuchs alloy wheels, which were initially just 4.5 inches wide. Chassis upgrades included Koni shock absorbers and ventilated brake discs, together with thicker 15mm front and new 16mm rear anti-roll bars.…

911 suspension evolution Throughout the 15-year career of the 356, Porsche had managed to adapt the swing axle rear suspension sprung with torsion bars that Dr Porsche had originally designed for the Beetle. In the early 1950s, the swing rear axle was a conventional configuration used by many manufacturers, including Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz. Fine tuning and careful weight distribution ensured that in the case of the 356, the oversteer characteristic of swing axles was kept at bay until very high cornering speeds were reached. Porsche realised, however, that with the 356’s successor a more sophisticated approach would be needed. Zuffenhausen considered a Watts linkage of the type used on its 718 racer, but ultimately decided against this on the grounds of cost and the limited space at the 901’s rear.…

Data file Full specs, ratings and market values of every Porsche 911 model from 1963 to 2023 can be found starting on page 76 Plus Showroom Looking for a new 911? The classifieds from our independent specialist partners are the first place where you should start your search Servicing & tuning Get the very best from your Porsche 911 with the help of our selected performance and maintenance specialists Porsche lifestyle Helping you make the right lifestyle choices to complement you and your 911. Don’t just drive Porsche, live the brand Insurance & finance Get your Porsche covered with the best insurance deals for road and track to ensure happy, safe motoring…

Paris-Dakar 959 recommissioned One of three 959s that entered the 1986 Paris-Dakar rally has been sympathetically restored to working order by Porsche Heritage The Paris-Dakar rally will need little in the way of introduction to Total 911 readers. Porsche has a long history with the 14,000km (8,700 mile) epic, which calls for entrants to navigate the challenging desert terrain between France and West Africa. In 1986, three Porsche 959s took to the start line. The winning French team of René Metge and Dominique Lemoyne were followed home by Jacky Ickx and Claude Brasseur in 2nd, while a service car driven by project manager Roland Kussmaul and Wolf-Hendrik Unger finished 6th. The Porsche Museum has preserved the trio as part of its collection and now, thanks to the work of Porsche…

Dakar first drive Apparently, the idea for an off-road 911 was first explored with the 991. Development reached the point of running prototypes, but the management got cold feet and the project stalled. It’s me who’s got the cold feet today, though. That’s because I’m standing on the ice track at the Winter Fahr Training centre in Muhr, Austria. It’s evident that the management’s concerns were finally overcome. The 911 Dakar is a production reality – albeit one that’s limited to a run of just 2,500 cars – because there are several of them in front of me. Total 911 has been referring to it for some time as the Safari, and the low-down is that Porsche had intended on calling its new all-terrain 911 exactly that. And this was…

50 years of RSR At the end of the 1960s Porsche had been engaged in something of a wrestling match with the FIA, the international motorsport governing body, over the homologation of its 911R for Touring Car racing. Stuttgart had been left smarting, for it knew the 911 to be eminently fit for this popular competition category, and so a plan was hatched to ensure that the Carrera RS of the early 1970s wouldn’t suffer the same fate. This 911 would race as a Group 4 Special Grand Touring car, taking on powerful works rivals such as Ford and BMW. In the wake of its incredibly expensive 917 prototype programme, there was a real desire internally at Porsche to race cars that shared more of the brand’s road-going models. This…

Klaus Ziegler began his career in 1956 as an apprentice at Karosseriebau Erhard Wendler in Reutlingen. Founded in 1840, Wendler was by the 1920s an established coach builder and car manufacturer, in the days when companies used third-party bodies for their chassis. Wendler was one of the coach builders that Porsche turned to for more specialised work, and in 1954 the company built the first batch of RS 1500 Spyders for private clients. The RS Spyder was 14-year-old Klaus’s introduction to working life. In the German engineering industry, the Lehrling (apprentice) had a challenging schedule of shop-floor learning and evening study. Eventually, it became his responsibility to hammer in the rivets on the Spyder’s aluminium body. He remembers Jo Bonnier, then a Porsche works driver, coming to Wendler to complain…

STAR CORRESPONDENCE Contact Total 911 Facebook /total911magazine Email editorial@total911.com Pinky’s design? Dear Sir, I’m always surprised no one points out the headlights on Pinky Lai’s 996 design in the studio (see photo). The ultimate headlight on the car wasn’t what he worked up in the studio! Without question the Boxster headlight was mandated by the higher-ups in Porsche due to the fact they were almost bankrupt and simply couldn’t afford a separate headlight/signal light arrangement until much later with the 997. Better to have a Boxster headlight on the 996 at the time than a Toyota 911. Dennis Mazzoni If you look closely at the photograph, you’ll notice that this specific ‘taping’ excercise bears very little resemblance to the production Porsche 996 whatsoever. There’s no adaptive rear spoiler, which…

I started with Porsche in 1996,” reveals Frank Moser. That was 27 years ago, in the material technologies department before he transferred to whole vehicle development. There, Frank worked with Wolfgang Dürheimer, then member of the board for research and development, as his assistant. Next, he moved to complete vehicle testing, before Matthias Müller gave him a role in production, overlooking quality at the Zuffenhausen plant. This role was later expanded to being responsible for quality across the entire company. “I have my dream job. Every job I did before was a dream job, because working for Porsche is a dream job,” says Frank. That’s a line we’ve heard many times before, in many interviews with Porsche employees, and it always rings true. Since July 2022, Frank’s dream job changed,…

911 technology: matrix headlamps We arrive under the cover of darkness. Weissach is a necessarily secretive place, but that darkness today isn’t to hide anything we’re not supposed to see, but rather to help demonstrate a new Porsche headlight technology. In what it’s describing as a world-first, Porsche has, alongside its suppliers Hella/Forvia, Infineon and Nichia, created high-definition (HD) LED headlights, and has applied for over 25 patents for the technology. Much like Porsche’s performance has accelerated in recent years, so too has its headlight technology. From the very first 901 from 1963 through to 1989, little changed with Porsche’s headlights. The 964 introduced halogen lights, and the 996 brought xenon technology to the mix. The 997 added directional capability, the 991 using a development of xenon as well as…

New Columnist Diego Gabathuler Switzerland Model 3.0 CARRERA SC Year 1982 Acquired JANUARY 2018 Model 997.1 TURBO Year 2008 Acquired AUGUST 2011 Model 997 GT2 Year 2008 Acquired FEBRUARY 2013 Model 997.2 GT3 RS Year 2010 Acquired MAY 2016 Model 991 GT3 TOURING Year 2018 Acquired FEBRUARY 2020 Model 992 GT3 TOURING Year 2022 Acquired MAY 2022 My 911 journey and obsession began in 2003 when I was in my late 20s. It was a used 996.1 Carrera, with a manual gearbox and lots of miles on the odometer. Everything else was out of my reach at that time. I enjoyed this comparatively small and light…

This family photo was taken at Zell am See in summer 1950. Many will recognise Dr Porsche on the left, but not the young fellow beside him. That’s 27-year-old Harald Wagner, who was visiting the Austrian home of his aunt Aloisa (to Harald’s left) and uncle Ferdinand. Harald’s mother was Aloisa’s sister, making him a first cousin of Ferry and Louise. Perhaps he was there after taking time off from work in his native Heilbronn, where he was responsible for fuel allocation for the city’s three petrol stations. Harald had survived four years as an infantryman during World War II. After a series of postings in Western Europe where the action had been thin, he was finally despatched to the Russian front and probable death, but the war ended before…