The feeling of driving a classic Porsche

I always fancy driving / owning one, one day. But I'm afraid it takes a better man to do so. To the privileged who own one and to the curious over the fence, this article will make your day with your morning cup of coffee. Here Is What It Is Like To Drive A 44 Year-Old Porsche PS Ken, can we have a classic sub forum?

Oh no. Here comes another "when I was a boy" stories. I'm sorry but I just can't help myself. - Of all the cars that I have ever owned/leased - and there have been quite a few over the last 50+ years - the most fun (challenging) to drive was my first 911 . I used to drive it at Virginia International Raceway when VIR was one long track . (I was not racing or even doing a "track day". I was just enjoying the perks of being a corner worker after a long day of flagging.) I had zero training in handling a 911 and I quickly discovered that if I weren't careful the car would bite me in the rear. I also discovered that getting it to go fast gave me a great feeling of accomplishment. (You do a lot of stupid things when you are young and dumb.) That experience gave me a love of all things Porsche that I still have to this day. If you ever get the chance to drive one of the first 911s do it! :cheers:

My prediction is there will come a day when triple turbo 2 cylinder hybrids are common, and people will talk about those classic Caymans and Boxsters with those great flat sixes, which could be upgraded to 3.8L!

According to Porsche I am driving a classic, but then she's always been a classic to me.

You can still have that experience. In the past 10 years I have owned 3 of the early 70s Porsches. I just loved the lightweight feel and responsiveness of those cars. Interestingly my Cayman is very reminiscent of my 1973 911T! Hurry though, the prices of the early cars is starting to climb.

I bought my first 911 (see avatar) for $3,000. I sold it for $3,500. It was the only car that I have ever made a profit on.

To us old folks, "Classic Porsche " means only one thing: 356.

The article reminded me of my 914--no power anything.

Finally got my '88 back from getting sorted at the shop last Thursday and got some "seat time" over the (May 2nd) weekend including some Highway 9 and Skyline driving, a trip to Laguna Seca / Monterey for the IMSA sports car races and even a couple of Porscheplatz corral parade laps on Laguna Seca. With all this driving over the weekend I've been pushing more towards the limits and in fact managed to rotate the car with the throttle on a couple of occasions during which I could feel all four wheels drifting slightly. On the parade laps, we could go flat out from turn 2 exit to just before turn 5 and again from turn 7 (just before the corkscrew) all the way around to turn 1 on the front straight. (Traffic bunched up and slowed at the other points on the track.) So I was able to push the car as far as I dared in the pretty scary turn 9. I also tried, on a couple of occasions in safe locations, to slam on the brakes on a downhill. Turns out it's pretty hard to lock up the brakes and I am forming the theory that the harder to push brakes actually gives you more control and allows you to threshold brake more easily without lockup. Anyway, I still have not been able to get a hint of back-end first trouble. I guess I'm being sufficiently cautious or maybe the backend brakes loose without warning at all and I've not hit that threshold. Either way, I'll continue to be careful. But the car feels very solid and stable to me. (Famous last words.) It's very fun to drive and is clearly a Porsche - made to be driven and driven hard. But my '88 is 17 years younger than the subject 1971 car so my driving impressions may not be the same. The lack of power steering and the need to press hard on the brakes still apply but my seat belts are in order and I find the gear shift throw to be very nice and natural and not too long. That may be the difference between the older 915 transmission and the G50 transmission that arrived in 1987. For the record, the subject '71 RS Clone is just that. The factory 1971 911T came with a 2.2 liter, 125 HP engine and the car weighed in at about 2240 lbs. The real RS was a 1973 2.7 liter car with 210 HP and 2365 lbs, 1,590 built and a 1974 3.0 liter RS with 230 HP and 1980 lbs, and only 109 built. The RS cars were street versions of Porsche race cars. The endurance racing rules required that a certain number (maybe 500) of the car model to be raced needed to be sold the public and so we got the RS cars - and still the same today with the GT3 RS cars.

So there has to be at least one contrarian here and I have to say that my 2008 Cayman S is enormously more fun to drive than my 1966 911 ever was. In 1966 I thought my 911 was super, and compared to other cars of the day it was. But compared to a modern Porsche the old ones were, shall we say "character building"

My old 911 - [URL=http://s172.photobucket.com/user/gfspencer/media/Porsche3.jpg.html] [/URL] [URL=http://s172.photobucket.com/user/gfspencer/media/023911inGreensboro.jpg.html] [/URL] One of these days (as the saying goes) I want to get a white Cayman with a red interior. By the way, I have a perfect 1/18th model of this car made by CMC. When I put the old 911 beside a 1/18th model of the Cayman you can see that they are almost the same size. As we all know, the new 911s are bigger.

I just sold my very low milage 987. Because I found myself only driving my other car....

Was 3,000 USD for a Porsche considered expensive back then in comparison to other cars? Remember he said that he purchased a used car. My first 911 was a 1970 911E and it stickered for around $8K. My recollection is that car had around 160 HP. To put this price in perspective, you could have purchased a C3 Vette with a 427CI engine producing 435HP in 1970 for around $6K, and the standard 350CI engine Vette stickered for around $5K. So even back then Porsches were about 50% more expensive that Vettes. Contrary to the article, the early 911s without power steering weren't hard to steer because the curb weight of the 911 was only a little over 2300 lbs, and the tires were tiny by todays standards. But as the article pointed out there no mechanical aids on the car. So 911s were extraordinarily easy to spin because of their abrupt over-steering tendencies. I quickly mastered the art of doing a 180 in my 911. I believe that every time I took my 911 in for servicing, I'd see at least one 911 in the body shop having a damaged fender or two being replaced. Once mastered however, the early 911s were far more fun to drive than even a 993 and certainly a 991 which is by comparison essentially a GT car. The early 911s were pure sports cars, and I doubt that many current 911 owners would enjoy driving them.

You better get a classic soon. The prices of 50 year old Porsches are going thru the roof where owners don't want to risk driving them. RM Auctions at Amelia this spring sold a '73 RS America for an eye-popping $890,000! 1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7 Touring | Amelia Island 2015 | RM Sotheby's

There may come a day when you see a car running on gasoline you're amazed its on the road.

In 1970 the Datsun 240Z was introduced and cost $3595 ... my friends and I thought they were crazy as my new SS350 Camaro cost $2800. The BMW 2002 was $3500 and a 911T cost $7000. I bought a new 914-1.7 in 1973 for $4600 (though I wanted the Lotus Europa JP Special at $9K) and sold it two years later for $4500 so I could buy a 1970 911 -T for $7000. Drove that for 4 years, rebuilt the engine (myself) and the transmission (not me) and sold it for $8500 to buy a Jaguar XJ6L (stupid!!!). That 911 was, and continues to be my favorite car, no power anything, twin 3-draft Zenith carbs ... 125hp, 16mpg, 901 transmission with the dogleg 1st, 15x6" Fuchs alloys with 185/70 tires ... no Porsche I've driven since has come close to replicating the lightness and directness of all of the controls ... of course one had to be very deliberate with the rubbery shifter (slow and easy shifts) and the bottom hinged and offset pedals....

Good read. It reminds me I need to pull my '75 911S out of the storage garage and give it some love. It is sort of a workout to drive. There is no eating or drinking while driving. Made before the days of cup holders.