Porsche 911 review

The Porsche 911 must be one of the world’s best adverts for the power of continuous product improvement. Through nearly half a century of refinement since it was conceived as a larger, more comfortable successor to the Porsche 356 and was powered by a 2.0-litre, 128bhp flat six engine, this effervescent sports car has kept up with the standards of the market’s freshest performance machinery. Technologies such as fuel injection, turbocharging, four-wheel drive and, most famously, moving from air to water cooling have been integrated. All the while, its legendary and utterly beguiling motive character has survived undimmed.
But never has the 911 taken such a significant leap as the one that delivered it from ‘997’ to this-generation, the ‘991’. With 90 per cent of the car’s mechanical ingredients new or improved, this 911 features completely new axle dimensions, electromechanical power steering, a downsized engine, a construction richer in aluminium than ever before and the passenger car’s first seven-speed manual gearbox.