ked

"You gotta have two Porsches in your garage..."
No, three.

sjanes

When I was looking for my first Porsche (back in 98) , I drove a new 2.5L Boxster. It was a great car, but I wanted a car for street/track, and the boxster just didn't have the feel I wanted. The new cars are great daily drivers, but they have less "soul" IMHO. The best way to choose between the two is to just get both.

Brett San Diego

Well, the author clearly stated that it was entirely subjective, and you will note that the author, who was the owner of the Boxster, cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the 911.

Brett

panchosouth

Two Porsches in the garage ...( please excuse me while I indulge in a Homer Simpson-esque drool)

WPOZZZ

Exactly! That's why I have a 3.2 Carrera Cab and a 996.

GrantG

I think they should've considered a nice 88/89 944 Turbo S - much more competitive than the 968 they used...

theiceman

Grant it certainly would have been more competitive but may have defeated the purpose in that it is not a "typical" porsche... don't know if you can get it for around 20K in the US.
having said that however the 968 was not as popular as the 944 was it not ? maybe someone from that forum could comment. I don't think a regular 944 would never have stacked up , I think a 86-89 Turbo would have been a better comparison, not an S as they were in very limited numbers weren't they ?

just musing.....

GrantG

You can actually get a VERY nice one in the teens.

I bought my 89 for $8,200. It was a VERY tight and strong car (mechanically 9/10) and cosmetically 7/10. I bought a 9/10 cosmetic & mechanical 88 for $16k with under 50k miles. It takes a very special example (near mint or heavily and well modified) to be over $20k.

It is by far the best peformance per dollar Porsche that you can buy (faster on the track than my 2002 996 3.6L), but they are very pricey and time-consuming to maintain...

Jay H

...I wouldn't be surprised if Porsche discontinued the 944 Turbo series because during the end of that 944 Turbo run (was it the 944 Turbo S that was the fastest 944 Turbo?) it was faster than a 911 in most aspects IIRC. Porsche doesn't like their other models being faster than the crown jewel 911...

I still think that the choice of using a 968 in this comparo was a good one. That was the final development of that 924/944 platform and with that big 3.0 liter 4 cylinder and the very balanced chassic design, one would think at first glance that it would be a pretty fair comparison to the other non boosted cars in the comparo. More apples to apples by not using a Turbo car in the mix.

ked

I suspect they considered, then rejected, the 944 Turbo because it is (arguably) inappropriate to compare blown & unblown cars, hard to find a significantly unmodified Turbo, & the aforementioned high operating costs (even by old Porsche standards). I predict they'll receive many letters on this one... let's be gracious in our (car's) victory.

theiceman

Yeah I agree.. it was pretty subjective and I would not be complaining if they put the 25y/o 3.2 last , that is pretty good company all round. Also if I remember the turbo S was the first production car to surpass the 100hp per litre mark was it not ?
Would be a real nice car to have , but I have owned 944s in the past and they can be exepensive to maintain compared to my SC.

All the best ..

Jay H

Enough of these fast Porsche comparo's. The next comparo should be:

1976 912E
1975 914
1977 924

GrantG

One other thing of note: Although I think a 944 Turbo S is a significantly faster track car than a Carrera 3.2 (at least where I live in the high altitude), it is not nearly as fun to drive. I really prefer the manual steering rack and rear weight bias of the 3.2. 944TS does have a great gearbox though (shifts beautifully and comes with LSD and oil cooler stock)...