I've owned several air-cooled 911's and driven a gazillion more, and the base 996 is the most fun to drive by far. I'd love a weekend fling with a vintage 911e, but as a car to own and drive, the 996 base model is impossible to beat if you want the 911e feel with creature comforts. Options are everything though for that lightweight feel. I didn't even like our first 996 awd/tiptronic -- between the automatic and the lack of feel from AWD, it felt like a Honda to me. I only bought another 996 because my wife kept talking about how much she loved her old 996. When I hopped in to test drive the 996.1 6sp/2wd/Coupe, I couldn't believe how different if was and didn't want to get out. I bought it on the spot. The 996 4S is nice, but it's a whole different ballgame on weight. The base model 996.1 (coupe/6sp/2wd) is 2901 lbs. The 996.2 C4S is 3240 lbs (+339 lbs) for 6-speed Coupe. The C4S Tip Coupe is 3361 lbs (+ 460 lbs), and the Cabriolet C4S Tip is 3532 lbs (+ 631 lbs over base 996.1). A lot of people love the C4S, but it does not have the 911e feel (not that everyone wants that). Full leather and 3-spoke steering wheel are "must have" options on the 996 (interior looks and feels cheap without full leather, and the 4-spoke wheel is clunky and feels dated for the more modern 996).
Thanks for that, now I'll be spending the next few days looking at the classifieds and obsessing over a 996
Don't be stupid. I'd buy a 996 as well The Mondial feels similar to the 911 3.2 I had but is far more interesting to drive, mostly due to the mechanical noise as well at that unbeatable "click-clack" when you change gears
^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^ I owned a 1986 Mondial 3.2 and and 1987 Carrera 3.2 at the same time. The Carrera was seldom driven. It was excellent, it's just that the Mondial was so much more visceral while being equally as practical -- the exhaust noises and clickety click of the shift gates were heaven. The Mondial 3.2 felt faster than the Carrera 3.2, not sure it was, but it was definitely more engaging. The 996 would be a much more even driving split -- it's just so excellent and fun to toss around, and so refined with meat locker A/C -- it makes prefect sense to hop back and forth between the two for the "raw versus sublime" contrast.
Although our secondary roads are rubbish in my home State-I regret never buying a 1Gen 1999 996 GT3,IMO they were special .
Peter I'm wondering if the 911 S 2.4 you drove was off song? The "S" starts to develop more power after about 4,000 rpm over the "E", under that, there's precious little difference. I've attached the power and torque curves for your perusal. In driving both, I certainly couldn't tell any flexibility difference between the two despite folklore suggesting otherwise. It's probably a mute point now anyway, most of the engines when rebuilt end up with a 2.7L displacement and the MFI pump recalibrated to suit anyway. Steel bumper cars are excessively expensive here, particularly the "S". A very nice no stories S 2.4 is at least a $600,000 purchase. An "E" to the same condition is about 75% of the S, the T around 75% of the E. We didn't get the CIS 911T the USA market did, our cars were RoW, therefore the 911 T was carburettored for Australia. I found the "T" performance perfectly adequate, we're all different I suppose. Incidentally, I weighed my 911 E 2.4, it is 1,060 kg wet. The 996 is a real enigma. And I enjoy it for similar reasons you do. I have a 2004 cabriolet in manual. I specifically wanted a manual and a cabriolet, not silver, and a 3.6. They are very hard to find in Australia as most of the open cars are tiptronic. I am unsure as to how Porsche quote weights for the cabriolet, but I think they quote it with the hardtop in place. My cabriolet is 21 kg heavier than the equivalent coupe with the hard top removed, being 1,356kg. I find the car very responsive to small control inputs and particularly quick to turn in. I don't think the overall handling is very good however, despite the significant levels of grip it can generate. The steering is a bit low geared and lifeless and the breakaway is very sudden and gives little feedback as to what it might be up to. Perhaps I have been spoilt by the smaller, lighter 911 E. It is however, significantly more talkative, narrower and nimble than a current generation 911. Oddly, the 996 GT-3 is heavier than the coupe and the cabriolet with manual transmission. Image Unavailable, Please Login
I suspect that any vintage 's' today has been tuned to improve drivability, but I never drove an 's' I liked in original factory tune. The 'e' all ran like scalded dogs. The t's were much slower than the 'e', but still had much better drivability than the 's'. The power/torque curves look close, but it doesn't feel that way back then with factory tuning. I remember one 's' in particular that I was pretty smitten with and wanted to buy -- it had the dual sport exhaust -- but it was making all this noise and not really feeling like it was going fast. Car & Driver did a test in 1972 of the t, e, and s and the 'e' was faster to 60mps and faster to 100mph than the 's', even though the e was a slightly heavier targa model versus the s being a coupe. Those full-tilt performance differences are much less profound than the drivability difference in ordinary driving, for the cars I drove at least. The s's will always be valued more because they were well-known as the highest performance option, even though I don't think they delivered that for 90% of driving conditions from the factory. I assume all the s's today have been tuned to improve drivability. If the cars were anchored to their factory tuning, I suspect the e would be at least more equal valuation to the s. Image Unavailable, Please Login
This car has been around town for the few days - said hi to the owners last night, they are just back from a drive to Darwin / Kakadu. So nice to see a car like this being actually used! Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Meanwhile I'm down the coast ,but no surf . Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Its what people do with 911s they drive them,like we did in Tassie ,one can imagine the conversation from the Collum ....the 911 owners would have left REAL QUICK
I weighed my 996.1 gt3 a few years ago, has factory rollcage (rear 1/2 installed) and about 1/2 tank of full came in at 1380kg on local stock feeds agent bridge. Has been driven, maybe highest km first series gt3 in oz.(done a few more since) Image Unavailable, Please Login Great car.
Some images from the 356 Register display yesterday @ Como. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
That 1380 kg real-world weight is shockingly dead on with factory specs: 996 GT3 weight/info: https://www.excellence-mag.com/resources/specs/82 (shows 3043 lbs = 1380.2 kg) Weight/Info for all 996: https://www.excellence-mag.com/resources/specs/57 Weight/Info for all Porsche models: https://www.excellence-mag.com/resources/specs
