AOL article Top 10 fastest cars

[JoeF]

Hey, check out the article on AOL about the top ten fastest cars. This is a partial clip about the Porsche 911 Turbo.

Porsche 911 turbo: This rear-engined icon is one of the very few mainstays of the exotic high performance car world: a true hard-core enthusiasts' car that has changed only slightly over almost four decades of continuous production in order to meet ever-escalating demands from government regulators and an ever more finicky clientele that finally got sick of the early 911's skittery handling and Spartan, almost VW-like interior.

JoeF
Skittery handling and Spartan
'79 SC
finicky, but not sick of it!

[JoeF]

Here is the entire article on the Porsche 911 Turbo:



Porsche 911 turbo: This rear-engined icon is one of the very few mainstays of the exotic high performance car world: a true hard-core enthusiasts' car that has changed only slightly over almost four decades of continuous production in order to meet ever-escalating demands from government regulators and an ever more finicky clientele that finally got sick of the early 911's skittery handling and Spartan, almost VW-like interior.
The hallmark air-cooled six, itself, finally had to go after the 1999 model run--for emissions reasons, mainly. But the water-cooled flat six that replaced it (still in the traditional, horizontally-opposed "boxer" configuration and mounted in the rear) loses not a step in deference to clean air and radiators. Non-turbo cars are fitted with 3.4 liter/300-hp versions--ho-hum at this price level. But the Big Kahuna is the turbo'd 3.6 liter head-kicker used in the top dog 911. It generates all of 415-hp, truly mighty output on a per-liter basis (for comparison, remember that the Viper's titanic 8-liter V-10 produces 450-hp, just 35 more despite being more than twice as large an engine. The Corvette's fairly big 5.7 liter V-8 engine, as a second example, manages 350-405-hp). If you want to go totally nuts, then spring for the competition GT2 model--a mere $179,000--but hey, it's ready to race and gets a horsepower nudge to 456-hp, making it the most powerful sports car (for its engine size, anyhow) you can get.

In addition to the strange-to-purists idea of a water-cooled engine, Porsche turbo buyers also have to deal with the presence of an automatic transmission ("Tiptronic") option--something the older turbo cars simply refused to offer, in an effort to keep the disco crowd at bay. There's also the fact that Porsche's other model, the Boxster, is arguably a much better deal at less than half the price of the full-boogie turbo AWD 911.

Yes, but almost anyone can finagle a Boxster, nice as that car is. And such notions as "deal" and "value" simply do not apply to cars like the 911. One makes a 911 purchase for its own sake. This is not transportation we're talking about, after all. Otherwise, the whole dynamic changes and we might as well go to McDonalds and skip the three-pound lobster.

[rstoll]

Sounds like the disco crowd may have written that one.

[PORSHIN]

Yes...and some of you may know what I'm talking about when I say...where are the SUBARU scoobies?