brucec59

I received Adrian Streather's 993 Essential Companion yesterday. I've only gone thru the first couple chapters so far.

First of all, I have to say I am shocked at the number of typos, bad grammar, open parenthesis, misplaced commas and so on, right from page 1. Really, it looks like an early rough draft. Could he not have simply re-read what he typed at least once? That kind of sloppiness plants seeds of doubt in my mind about the rest of the content, though I am inclined to trust it based on the book's reputation on RL.

Anyway, on to my question. Adrian says in the opening pages that the 964 was seen by Porsche as an "enthusiast" car, and the 993 was built to appeal to the traditional 911 customer. What does this mean? I 've never heard that before. How is the 964 more of an enthusiast car than the Carrera 3.2? And how is the 993 less of an enthusiast car than the 964?

Thanks.

Mike J

Adrian's book is quite good, but do not forget that it captures his opinions as well, so at times he is biased that way. Look at his opinion on the RS clutch, he seems not to like it on a street car and prefers the DMF instead (from my recollection). Most of the people on this list think the opposite. I think its an individual's choice on which 911 model tickles their fancy. However, the 993 seems to have been built for a broader market, especially with its more "modern" styling.

Again, IMHO.

Cheers,

Mike

Rinty

Bruce:

With respect to typos, etc., I seem to recall that the book is a translation.

The "enthusiast" reference puzzled me, as well. What happened is that Porsche management saw the 964 as catering mostly to the hard core performance crowd, and set out to refine the car to have broader appeal. For example, one of the main things they were concerned with was road noise transmitted from the rear suspension into the body shell via the semi trailing arms, (or whatever). By implementing a new multi link system, they were able to isolate the suspension from the chassis, noise wise.

Another change was to increase the trunk space by about 30%, to make it more practical for touring.

Paul Frere also has a fair amount of information on the dynamics within Porsche management at this time, in his book Porsche 911 Story.

I hope I've answered your question, but others can correct or clarify my response, as I didn't have time this morning to re-research the topic.

As for which series of 911 is more of an enthusiast's car, I'm not going there.