[Z-man]

The first Porsche car was a 356. Why? Basically it was a marketing scheme: Porsche felt people wouldn't buy a first car from an upstart company, so he picked 356, so people would assume there's been other cars in the company before.

So how did he go from 356 to 911? Well, I can tell ya where he got the middle '1': Originally, the 911 was to be called the 901. Unfortunately, after he new car was shown at the Frankfurt autoshow (in 1965?) Peugot informed Porsche that they have a copyright on all three digit car names that have a '0' in the middle. Rather than get involved in a pesky lawsuit, Porsche decided to rename the 901 to 911.

The name Targa is derrived from "Targa Florio," a famous race in Italy, I believe.

Carrera, as mentioned before means race, and is derrived from the "Carrera Panamerica" a famous race in Mexico, if I'm not mistaken.

S (as in 911S and 944S2) stands for "Super," while SC stands for Super Carrera.

The other numbers (besides the middle '1' in 911) I have no clue of who the Porsche people get them, besides being project numbers that became the car numbers.

-Zoltan.