autobonrun

I found this Road and Track article on the 911 interesting. In it, the writer said:


"The writing it would seem is on the wall. And what is written is that the venerable and venerated 911 is in the twilight of its years. ... It's difficult to see the demand or the car lasting more than a couple more years. ... The 911 is as good as it can be made".

What is truly interesting is the date of this article was August 1980.

I'd say he missed this prediction. I guess it goes to show how much magazine writers know.

Scott 1996 993c2

Scott

dcdude

Reminds me of when Probe was supposed to kill the Mustang. And when Honda killed the Acura Legend brand (which I lamented with my VP when I was there years later). Then there's New Coke.

There have been some serious blunders from my brothers in marketing. Fortunately, none of mine (to date) have been this high profile!

bart1

There is a good thread in the 911 forum right now about a comment that was made during a recent race. The GT2 race 911 might go mid-engine, though.

I love that comment made in 1980!

autobonrun

You're right I should not generalize; I should have said "this magazine writer".

bart1

https://rennlist.com/forums/911-foru...the-911-a.html

cdmdriver

Porsche will never get rid of the 911. It would seem logical to mount the engine a little further forward.

RallyJon

The other side of that is when writers drive each new iteration of rear-engined Porsche and say, "THIS time, they've really tamed it's tail-happy nature." And each new rear-engined Porsche since the '50s will still happily toss you off the road backwards at a predictable (and none too large) margin over normal driving pace, given the right circumstances.

autobonrun

RallyJon, you got that right. Anyone that has never felt what it's like when the rear starts to come around is in for a treat. I had my rear end break loose on my SC once on a wet pavement. It swung left to right at least three times before I got it straight. It feels like a bob weight pulling you off the road rather than just a slide, then when you recover it, it will swing back to the other side with just as much force. I've done that once in over 20 years. All I can say is stay on the throttle and steer.

tctung

Most magazines are commercial oriented. We can pay them to write what we want them to write. That is why we should only see those pictures with big busted ladies and nice cars and should never read their article.

Scott Lenger

So all this time that I've subscribed "because I like the articles" really, truly doesn't hold up?

viperbob

When he was thrown out of Road & Track he went to MSNBC and last year predicted the stock market at the end of '08 would hit 18,000....

Duckman

I believe that in 1980 Porsche believed the days of the 911 were numbered. That was the entire reason for the 928, much like Ford and the Probe/Mustang mentioned previously.

As for moving the engine forward to more of a mid-engine design, has anybody heard about the Cayman/Boxster? Duh!

I can't remember where but I have read somewhere that the original Porsche proto-type design used a mid-engine configuration but it was abandoned in favor of rear-engined cars for production. However, the article never explained why. The only thing I can figure is that in order to have a mid-engine application, you have to give up the almost-unusable back seats.

Fahrer

The original design for the 356 prototypes was based on rear-engine because that is what they had to start with ( from the VW Beetle).

Mid-engine design is expensive but is the best for racing. The Boxster is more reasonabley priced because it has been produced outside by Valmet.

Branding ( reason to keep rear-engine) is also important, which is why it was also insisted that the all-powerful 917 had to be air-cooled because they were selling air-cooled 911's at the time.

patela

Actually, I seem also to recall that the original sports car design was mid-engine, and then the engine was moved back to accomodate rear-seats... and so the ***-engine wondercar was born. Apparently the 550 spyder and later the boxter are the real products of the original intent. However, I'm sure that someone here knows much more that we, and if we wait long enough, they'll come along.