Interesting Ferrari v Porsche thread

pretty much what I expected and I agree with some of the thoughts/opinions presented...

 

Personally, I hate that type of pointless babble.

 

Yeah, not the greatest discussion, but the point about Porsche not having as much soul is actually interesting.

I haven't driven the newest Ferraris, but Porsche (and VW) continue to trade a lot of their marvelous German character (look at the 356/Speedster and even the 993) for mass market appeal.

I think soul has gone done more as a function of refinement and not so much because "Germans don't have soul and Italians do". From what I've read here, even Ferrari fans sometimes think something was lost from Daytona era to the 550/575-and-on era.

Also, there are enough soul-less Italian cars (Fiat Strada, anyone?) to confuse the issue.

 

I'll just stick my two cents in to stir the pot. I can't speak to modern Porsches, as I haven't driven one, but when I was learning to drive back in 1976 (yeah, I'm like, OLD!) the family car was a 1974 Carrera. Back then a Carrera was actually something a bit special. But all the same it was our only car, did school car pool duty (for 4 kids+driver!) and everything. Never broke down , covered tens of thousands of miles.

Of course there was always the knowledge that this was a thoroughbred. The damn engine wouldn't even run below 3000 rpm, at least not happily, and between 3k and 4k there was no power to speak of. But when you hit 4000 rpm, WOW!

The vicious handling was another giveaway. It was like practically my first driving lesson: NEVER LIFT IN A CORNER!

So for me, yeah, Porsches have character, but I'm going back 30 years. Damn, I am old!

 

Well there are a couple of things going on in that discussion........ Many of us that own both. I think the people that say Porsche has no soul are those that drive their cars in a regular sort of way. The exhaust note is not nearly as exciting and the aural part of a car ride under normal circumstances on a US freeway or even country road is a big part of the experience. But most importantly, IMHO, the thing that contributes to the every day experience of the car in this day and age is how the car behaves when it's driven at 6/10's or 7/10's of its potential. The Ferrari, even the GT-based series, is more exciting when driven at 6/10's than the Porsche. There's more road feed-back, it's a bit twitchier, easier to roll out the back-end (unless you still have the older Porsches or even a 993 TT) and it just feels as if you're more on the edge. I'm always more alert to everything when I drive the Ferrari on normal roads than when I drive any of my Porsches.

The newer Porsches are SO competent that under normal American driving situations, they're just less exciting.

Both cars are different animals on the track and for those people that say a Porsche is unexciting after having driven them at 8-10/10's on a track....well, I guess they have just have higher thresholds for stimulation than a normal human.