The Porsche 911 may well be the greatest sports car ever made. It has been in production for nearly fifty years and has undergone a number of changes in that time. However the things that made the 911 so great have largely gone unchanged. The result is one of the longest lasting name plates in sports car history and a car that can still compete for the title of the top sports car in the world.
One of the things that really stands out about the Porsche 911 is just how small the engine is compared to its competitors. In the early days they were using a small four cylinder engine and over the years the size and power has gone up but nowhere near as much as its competitors. For most of its history the 911 used an air cooled engine although have since gone to using water cooled engines like everybody else. What really made the 911 different was that it was a rear engine car. These days that is no big deal but at the time it was introduced it was quite revolutionary. They weren’t the first rear engine car but it was one of the first successful sports cars with a rear engine.
The area where the Porsche 911 really shines is in terms of handling. At the time the 911 was introduced most sports cars were big with big powerful engines. Porsche came along with this really small nimble car that could outperform it’s much more powerful competitors. One of the reasons that it was able to do this was the rear engine. This gave the car a much better balance and allowed to it get around corners much faster than the other cars in its class could. This is a big part of the reason they were so successful on the race track.
According to Exotic Car News, one of the reasons that the Porsche 911 is considered to be a great sports car is that it actually drives like a sports car. It took skill to drive a 911. A lot of this has been taken out of the modern car because of the increased emphasis on safety but even compared to other cars today this is still true. The 911 continues to use rear wheel drive and it is a car where if you are not paying attention you could find yourself in the ditch pretty quickly.
There are few cars that have the instant recognition of the Porsche 911. It has always had a distinctive appearance and although there have been changes over the years none of them have been big enough that you can’t put an original 911 next to a new one and see the lineage. This history and tradition has really helped to maintain the image of a car that really revolutionized the sports car industry and continues to be one of the top cars in the world.