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I see no aesthetic beauty in any of these modern day ducktails....I wish I did! Unlike the old ones they block out one of the most beautiful views of any Porsche....IMO....the rear grille!
I guess it’s an acquired taste. But I hear you and wouldn’t completely disagree. But for me, I just love the ducktail look and have since 1973/74 I guess! No right answer on this one.
I definitely have some cognitive dissonance about the duck on a 997 body.
The clean lines with the OEM tail retracted are indeed, iconic and elegant. I suppose that's why all Carreras post-993 have retractable wings. So, Porsche agrees and added the automatic deploying wing to reduce lift for stability at high speeds (as opposed to downforce for cornering- which requires a much larger foil á la the Aerokit/GT models). Vmax of 993S = 168, 996S = 161, 997.1S = 182, 997.2S = 186 and 997.2 GTS/X-51 = 190. At those velocities, straight line stability is critical.
It works, but with the rubber bellows exposed when deployed is not exactly stylish. Manually deploying one while parked or at slow speeds always looks contrived or racer wannabe to my eye.
I actually prefer the clean OEM retracted look on my GTS, but added the Getty tail and Speedster/Sport Classic front lip for better aero at triple digit speeds for late night autobahn-like runs between LA and Vegas on I-15.
It is, as stated above, all about personal taste, but the 997 Sport Classic created an itch I've been wanting to scratch for years. By forgoing the 3rd brake light delete panel mod, I can swap back to OEM for about an hour of labor $...so I've left myself an out if I miss the clean lines of OEM.
Last edited by Liste-Renn; 04-18-2024 at 07:25 PM.
@Liste-Renn My apologies because I'm sure I missed this on another thread, but I'm curious to hear if you've been able to test the duck/lip combo on one of your 'spirited' nighttime runs to Vegas...
Re: LAX-LAS
Not yet, but early May is my next drive in SoCal. Will report back with the verdict.
On multiple occasions the OEM setup has felt squirrely to me in X-winds going over one of the passes on that route. Late nights, one can really explore the GT aspect of the 997 on that 200 mile stretch of I-15. One has to slow for Barstow and to a lesser extent Baker, but I've not seen an LEO in 4 round trips. Not even a WAZE alert. The light traffic moves briskly at that hour, with some interesting jockeying for lead after side-by-side semi trucks set a moving road block at 55 (or less) climbing up the passes. Once the passing lane opens up, someone has to set the upper limit of "normal" traffic speed and break away from the "peleton". A Vmax of 190 is a real advantage.
And high speed cruising is best experienced solo. I trust my car and myself exponentially more than another driver passing me- or worst of all, a clueless sort cruising in the left lane with no regard for a high beam flash to "Please move right" when being overtaken. Passing on the right exposes one to a late lane change directly into your path. That's why das ist verboten, a cardinal rule, on the autobahn- overtake speed differential is a major cause of deadly accidents there. "Drive right, pass left, stay in the rightmost open lane" is generally/almost universally ignored here in the land of the free (to be an idiot) US of A.
That high speed X-wind instability experience, along with my lust for the Sport Classic, drove my decision to go with the Getty. Then further research drove my decision to match the aero downforce it would create with a Porsche wind-tunnel tested/matched front lip.
P.S. The HST quote in your sig block is evocative of his epic drive in the "Red Shark" in search of the American Dream.*
04-18-2024, 11:06 AM
