Total 911 No. 204

Spring is here, which means the sun is shining, temperatures are lifting and, in the UK at least, optimism is in the air, boosted by the easing of long and restrictive coronavirus curbs. Life might be attempting to return back to normal, but our collective scars from the pandemic will be worn for years. A positive to come from the pandemic though is a reminder that life is indeed short and precious, and as such there’s no point hanging around when it comes to owning the 911 legend, particularly if it’s a goal or aspiration that you’ve been harbouring for a while. “A whopping 90% of Porsches are being bought blind currently” Better still, the market is buoyant, with lots of examples for sale. However, many dealers are saying that while the…

992 GT3 RS breaks cover First public sighting of next Rennsport on road Total 911’s spies have captured the 992 GT3 RS on public roads for the first time as part of its preproduction testing. The mule, on its way to the Nürburgring Nordschleife for a development run on the Green Hell, features an outrageously proportioned rear wing, which is of the swan neck design as debuted on the 992 GT3 earlier this year. The 992 Rennsport’s wing features large, squared-off end plates, which will likely be masking a pointier end plate for production cars. The wing appears to have manual adjustability in terms of angle positioning like that of its recent Rennsport predecessors. That outlandish rear wing hints at a major aerodynamic upgrade for the 992 GT3 RS over the outgoing 991.2 GT3…

In my career I always had good chemistry with my co-drivers. I’d say especially so with Jo Siffert and Jacky Ickx. They both were a bit smaller than me, so I got used to driving in different positions which weren’t necessarily the most comfortable for me. You work as a team and that was the way it was. At the end of 1969 Porsche engineer, Helmuth Bott, said to me, “Brian, you are our favourite driver!” When he said that, I recalled in my mind there were ten factory Porsche drivers, so I felt quite impressed. I replied, “Thank you Herr Bott!”, thinking he would say, you are so fast, you are so careful with the car or something similar. However, he didn’t say any of those things. He said, “Brian,…

911: then and now Dear Sir, I have a 2004 996 Carrera 4, which I have owned for the last 16 years. I am told that the Porsche Switchable Exhaust is coming to the end of its life (it is the original…) and I was interested in any thoughts you had on a replacement exhaust. I quite like the theory of having the switch on dash, but I have only used it a handful of times over the last 16 years (I like leaving the house at 03:00am and trying not to wake people). I would be interested in any thoughts on third party vs Porsche exhaust and what third party exhaust you would recommend (if I am honest, I would want the exhaust to be a little louder than it is, but…

Scott Gardner Job title Porsche master technician Time at Porsche 15 years The parking brake on my 991.1 Carrera S is intermittent at best. Its performance seems fine, but often when I start the car I get a parking brake failure message keep popping up. When I then shut down the car and restart it, the message will often disappear, though not always. How concerned should I be? I’m reluctant to take it to an OPC just yet as the car isn’t covered by a Porsche Warranty, and the brake itself hasn’t failed – so far! Steve Clarke Hard brake warnings are usually one of two things on the 991.1 generation of the 911 – it was the first 911 to adopt the electronic handbrake system and as such there are tolerances that the motors…

One hundred and forty three thousand, five hundred and eighty. The number of times you’ve heard about IMS issues with the 996? Unlikely, even if sometimes it seems otherwise. Pity the 996, for its place in history will always be clouded by one technical issue. It’s not the first 911 to suffer serious mechanical maladies either, but it’s unquestionably the one that’s had to suffer the consequences of its failings in perpetuity. Perhaps a victim of an increasingly connected world, where information (and misinformation) was more easily spread, or its circumstance, where it had the difficult task of replacing a much-loved run of air-cooled cars. Throw in the fact it shared its looks with its cheaper Boxster relation, and history was always going to be hard on the 996. History is…