Pointless thought but curiosity got the better of me...
 

In English we say nine eleven, it may be more of a linguistic custom, but does anyone say nine hundred eleven when referencing our car's model name instead? In German or other languages? Or is the 'nine eleven' method of referencing the model pretty much global?

This is Wikipedia's take on it.

I'm only guessing on this, but the 911 was originally identified by the factory as the 901 (nine oh one) until the conflict with another auto maker who already dubbed their car the 901. The renaming simply made it the nine eleven as a simple variation from the original designation. Every other language would likely adopt their translation of "nine eleven" as a car model rather than name it according to its numerical place value. At least that's my theory.

Don't think this is exactly right.... I believe it was Audi that trademarked the 9"0"1, they did not have a car called the 901 but they trademarked the "0" being their middle number on any model
So from what I understand even if Porsche wanted to call it the 801 they could not

Peugeot was the one who was going to cause a fuss over "901"...they had many models with the "0" in the middle. Porsche changed over to 911....rest is history.

The Porsche 911 (pronounced as Nine Eleven or German: Neunelfer)

See 7 seconds in:

"nine hundred elf"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnkvafg_Vv0

neunhundert is the translation to german on a language translator - does sound like nine hundred, though.

Indeed.

It was Peugeot, the french car maker... Our cars are suppose to be 901s...

Wait, so I don't drive a Porsche nine hundred eleven????

All I know is that mine goes up to 'eleven'. :) nine eleven is the only way I've ever heard it referred to, as opposed to the variations of Porsche.

does it really matter?

Hahaha

I have seen this brought up before. Remember as well that the 911 only covers through the long hood era of cars. Although the 930 number has typically been used to denote turbo's If im not mistaken all of the impact bumper cars from 75 to 89 were 930 chassis/body style (with out the turbo flares of course), in other words the 930 internal number was for all cars of that era (this may be wrong). then the 964 came out and the 993,993,997 and new 991. Although all have been called 911's the only true 911's are the originals. Just food for thought.

Regards
Dave

I had a buddy from Atlanta who referred to Porsches as Nine One One or Nine Two Eight instead of Nine Eleven and Nine Twenty Eight like i would

I know in Japan they call it kyu ichi ichi or nine one one. I say nine eleven, nine fourteen, nine fourty-four etc, but for some reason switch starting with the 964 to nine six four, nine nine three, nine nine six etc

Well my license plate reads in roman CMXI SmileWavy

In French it i said "neuf cent onze" which is literally saying "nine hundred eleven". I grew up bilingual and lived in Quebec as well as France (took me a while to get rid of my rediculous québécois accent when I moved to France, although I slip back into it whenever I speak with French Canadians...)

Dave,

This is incorrect. Any chassis with 930 in the VIN is a 911 Turbo (or some turbo variant). Even the "Turbo Look" models had a 911 VINs.

The 930 chassis had raised and extended back inner pickup points for the trailing arms. The rear pickup points for the A-arms was relocated higher as well. The "Turbo Look" models shared these revised pickup points.

Scott

Haha, you're right it doesn't matter, but neither do most existential philosophical questions... what does matter is that I'll be going for a hard drive later this afternoon. :D

That's the same with most romance languages, wasn't familiar with the germanic rules though.

If only we had the definitive answer from a German Porsche engineer from the 60's. ;)

I believe the O in the middle of the number was not really a zero, but a hole to put the crank in, dating from the time where old Peugeots were started by hand.

No you don't, its a 91 one, just so ya know. SmileWavy

A little of topic but in Canada we don't have Z 28 or 240 Z cars. Zee works for Zebra and ZZ Top but to say you have a Zee 28 or 240 Zee just sounds wrong, its a Zed 28 and a 240 Zed. Zee sounds kinda gay, not that there's anything wrong with sounding gay.... but it does.

Zed's dead baby, Zed's dead.

Still waiting for the 'official' Germain engineer's pronunciation.