How timley - I just *delivered* my liteweight 911 (carbs, cams blah blah) to it's new owner last saturday. Note that I replaced it with a 2002 996 about a month ago, but the new owner only just got around to squaring up with me.
Anyway - by tuesday I was laying awake at night thinking about what my next air cooled car would be. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret for a millisecond gettting the 996, and I don't think I could ever daily drive a 911 after this 996. But air cooled 911's are really cool, kinda like motorcycles for the guy who's gotta have four wheels (that would be me)
The 996 is a really reallly nice driver. PUH-lenty fast, and handles and feels entirely like a Porsche should. Sure I'm thinking a suspension upgrade, but that's exactly how I felt about my stock SC suspension as well. The 996 gets *MORE* looks than the 911 did, and in the flesh it's a beautiful car to look at. Remember this is coming from a former dyed in the wool airhead.
Guys who say the car is soft and that Porsche had somehow lost the thread with the 996 are just plain wrong. They have either never driven a 996, or have done so but with their heads stuck up the arses.
Now, with respect to engine failure. The RMS issue is nuthin' The new seal design works - fulll stop. What *may get you is an Intermediate shaft falure. Both the bearing and the sprocket were under engineered, and in some cases the designs) lead to catastrophic failure. This was supposd to have been fixed by 2002, and there were certainly modifications made, but a close friend of mine bougt a very low mileage 2003 model (20K miles) recently and he grenaded his motor after only three months of enthusiastic ownership. My car is 40+K miles on the other hand, and is a real pussycat. I know more happy 996 owners than sad ones.
Anyway - long story short: 996 great car, 911 super cool neat old hobby cars, if you can manage to own both then do so!
