[masraum]

That Porsche Picture Ain't Right, But It's Also Not Wrong

I saw this recently, and thought, WTF, that doesn't look right to me. I know the new cars are bigger, but come on...





Excerpt from the article.

As far as I can tell, there are two kinds of people who are sharing the falsified photo. The first kind is using it to show how big and fat new Porsches have gotten, and they are putting caustic comments like "#JumboJet" in their description. But they're in the distinct minority. Most of the people on Instagram who are sharing the image think it's real and they think that the new SUV-sized Nine Eleven is just ducky.

If you're a long-time Porsche owner and enthusiast like I am, that should frighten you right down to your authentic Stuttgart-crest socks. Why? Simple. The 911 is one of very few sporting cars on the market to hold the line on approximate size and weight. Although the early cars were admirably light, even for the era—we're talking maybe 2,300 pounds wet for a short-wheelbase, pre-impact-bumper car—by the time Porsche built my 993 twenty-two years ago they'd plumped up to about 3,100 pounds. Blame things like power seats, side-impact door beams, and functioning A/C, not to mention the increased weight of the running gear needed to handle a literal doubling of horsepower between 1967 and 1995.

So if the 911 gained eight hundred pounds in the first twenty-eight years of its life, what has it gained in the twenty-two that followed? The answer is: about nothing. Fifty pounds or so, most of it in the wheels and tires. This is utterly astounding, even more so when you consider that the newest car is significantly larger than its predecessors.

If you look at the real photos of the first and last Nine Elevens, you'll see that the new car isn't really much taller, but it is significantly wider. This is the first thing you notice when you get into the 991-generation cars: the pleasant, airy intimacy of the original shell has yielded to a seating position and window profile that is far more 928 than it is old-school 911. There's more room, to be sure, particularly around the shoulders and elbows, but the new car feels like a big cave instead of a small greenhouse.

Also interesting: the current model only really looks like a 911 if there isn't an original 911 sitting next to it. All of the stylistic touches that we've come to accept—the wide fenders, the sleek headlamps, the tall tail with the very shallow-angled real window—those simply aren't part of the original design. In silhouette if not badge, the new 991 is really a descendant of the 935 "Moby Dick," which didn't share much with the street cars besides the A-pillars and doors.

How did Porsche make it so much bigger, more powerful, and more luxuriously equipped, without making it any heavier? The answer to this is long and detailed, but all you really have to do is close the driver's door on both an air-cooled car and a brand-new one and you'll have a general understanding. The former will "ping" shut, a unique noise that sounds like a five-ounce silver coin dropped from a second-story window. The latter will make a sort of plasticky rattling noise. Some people think that's not much of a price to pay for dropping the quarter-mile time a couple seconds and increasing the top speed by twenty miles per hour. Other people strongly disagree and that's why a mint-condition 1998 911 Turbo costs more to buy right now than a mint-condition 2016 911 Turbo does.