The front looks like the offspring of a 917 and an early 90s Camaro.
In fact, the whole car looks like the kind of aftermarket exterior treatment you'd expect to find screaming along some slick county two-lane outside of Miami (no offense intended to Floridians) -- it looks like a gutsy, dramatic, no-expenses-spared dressing up of a Boxster or 996 Cab.
It's not that it's an ugly car, at all, but it is an example of Porsche's design team heading in a familiar (flashy, Euro, of-the-moment) direction. One cool thing about the 911 and other models has always been their mix of retro and futuristic design cues. They often look like old, out of date ideas of what the future would look like. The fastback of the 911, the flying saucer look of the 928 -- they were cool in a really out-of-step way. They looked like they were designed by engineers who didn't get good grades in their art classes, but stuck to their guns nonetheless.
And the early sixties design for the 911, for example, outlasted everything else that was supposedly hip, and current, and 'on the cutting edge of automotive technology' at the time. Does anybody remember square headlights?
This new design for the Carrera GT is -- oddly -- hampered by the fact that it makes perfect sense. It looks like it could have come from Audi, or Toyota, or even Pontiac. It has a mix of different familiar Porsche cues, but it doesn't have the singularity, the cohesiveness that the (small handful of) great Porsches have had in the past. The original 911 worked. It stood up to accordian bumpers, and wild flares and wings. The 993 update of the 911, in particular, worked great. The 928 worked. The old 550 kicked ass. Even the 356 worked.
But the Boxster, the 914, the 924 variants, the Cayenne, and this thing, well... they're fine cars, but -- if looks mean anything --they're not really in the same league.
Of course, I'd happily drive this Carrera GT (just about) every day if I could afford it. That much power and technology makes artistic concerns seem utterly beside the point. An old Jaguar E-type (or even a new XKR) is a better looking car, but the Carrera GT would make short work of the Jaguar on the track.
That, of course, is what wins races.
Winning races is something that Porsche, the corporation, is hopefullly concerning itself with once again. If that's what the appearance of the Carrera GT is all about, then I'm all for it -- Camaro nose and all.
[This message has been edited by JackOlsen (edited 10-01-2000).]