Why Does Everyone Love the Porsche 911?

With a new generation of 911 on the horizon, let's dig into the mystique.


I've always known the 911 was different, and the Cliff's Notes version of why: the famous shape, the engine in the back, the Porsche's practicality compared to other exotic cars. As a kid, I'd read enough magazines and played enough driving video games to understand that 911s were fast, precision vehicles that rewarded enthusiastic driving.

But if you asked me to explain the dedicated following in more detail than that, you'd find me at a loss. We all know the car's look and legacy are ingrained to automotive culture, and yet there are other history-rich, high-performance cars out there, many of which are prettier and rarer than a Porsche 911. So what exactly is behind the cult of this car? How is the 911 still special after all these years?

This feels like a good time to ask the big question, since the newest version of the Porsche 911, officially designated the 992, will arrive next year as a 2020 model year car. So I asked Porsche acolytes. I read everything I could about the 911. And, finally, I drove one. Here is what I found.

Personality and History

New 911s, fans say, feel like old 911s, in the best possible way.

I started by asking Matt LeBlanc, host of Top Gear and owner of multiple 911s going back to 1984. “I have some older Porches that have no driver’s aids, and I have a brand new Porsche that’s filled with driver’s aids,” he said. “And it’s interesting because you can feel the DNA of the car. If you drive an older, 70’s 911, then you get in a 2015 911, you can totally feel the lineage. It’s incredible, just a seat-of-your-pants feel.”

In an era of disposable consumer goods, using an older version of a technology is a punishment. The Porsche is an unusual product whose form has been deliberately preserved. That’s tough to do. Any company that’s successful at this task is remarkable.

It Can Be Anonymous

A silver 911 Turbo is a low-key supercar. But the horse knows what’s up.
Ezra Dyer

If the 911 is such a performance masterpiece, I used to think, then why has it never looked as cool as it should. No predatory animal headlights, no huge rear wing. If I'm spending six figures, I’d rather save up for something obnoxious from Italy, or a McLaren 570S. It's got dihedral doors!

The older I get, the more I understand the appeal of sleeper cars. Vehicles that look unassuming, maybe even boring, but will tear up back roads and blow away people in neon Japanese tuners. The Audi RS3 and Volkswagen Golf R come to mind.

I’ve only had custody of McLarens and Lamborghinis for spans of less than a week, which is not long enough to get tired of the lame jokes. (You hear “Wanna trade?!” often). Even so, I can see the beauty of going unnoticed. Especially by law enforcement.

It Has a Trunk

The 2012 to 2018 911 (called the 991) had a longer wheelbase than its predecessor. Meaning, a comfortable cabin, and rear seats you could actually use.

Speaking of Lamborghinis and McLarens: If you get to drive your heroes, then you'll learn that so much of what makes those cars fast on a track is deeply irritating in everyday life. You ride low, afraid that Range Rovers and semi trucks won’t see you. You scrape the nose on speed bumps. Even with cameras and sensors, parallel parking requires you to be impervious to the pressure of performing for gathering pedestrians. With 911s, that’s not an issue.

Within the last decade or so, some of those more obnoxious supercars have followed Porsche's lead in becoming more user-friendly. In the mid-2000s, around the time of the Porsche Carerra GT, six-figure mid-engine vehicles started getting transmissions, engines, and interiors that made them comfortable even at civilian speeds. The driver’s seat of a Lamborghini Huracán set to Strada mode is a pleasant place to be, even in commuter traffic. Even so, none can match the practicality of the 911, thanks to the Porsche's bigger trunk, better visibility, and a front lip that won’t scrape every parking lot entrance and exit.

For real life driving, with potholes and groceries, the 911 is a practical tool. Even the visibility is good. When I mentioned to PM Auto Editor Ezra Dyer that I actually fit my nieces in the back of a 2018 Turbo S, he pointed out for the 991, the version of the 911 from 2012 to 2018, Porsche stretched the length of the wheelbase, creating rear seats that are actually useable. You can’t get that in a Corvette Z06, Audi R8, or Jaguar F-Type. More Ezra wisdom: The 911 has optional all-wheel drive, which, for a long time, was really unusual in sports car. With a set of snow tires, a 911 can handle a harsh winter.

There's One for Everyone

You can get a 911 as a convertible, coupe, or Targa (above). Other options: wide-body, all-wheel-drive, turbo or non-turbo.

Building my fantasy 911 on Porsche’s website gets overwhelming. GTS, Targa, Carrera, Carrera S, GT2, GT3. But for a real customer, the wealth of options is another part of the appeal.

The starter 911 Carrera is unimpeachably great. The Targa will feel like a coupe in winter, and perform a cool roof-storage dance in the spring. The Turbo S looks like any other rich aunt or uncle’s Porsche, but will out-accelerate certain Lamborghinis and Ferraris. The GT3 is a street-legal track car so scrupulously adjusted that it has a sticker decal instead of a Porsche badge to save weight. There’s even a hybrid 911 on the way.

The Engine Is Special

The flat-six engine from a 1975 Porsche 911 (930) Turbo. Few manufacturers have ever used this type of engine, and even in modern models, nothing else sounds like it.

These days, the 911 is one of the only cars you can buy with a flat-six, which provides certain advantages. Compared to something like a V6, a flat boxer engine’s cylinders are really low down. That gives this really heavy part of the car a low center of gravity. That gives you better handling.

911 fanaticism means scrutiny for everything Porsche engineers change when they introduce a new model. Since the flat-six is so core to the car's identity, the change from air-cooled to water-cooled 20 years ago was scandalous. Some fans considered it an unforgivable adulteration of the 911's identity. I bet Leica dealt with the same thing when it made its first digital camera. However you feel about it, the change adds to the car's history. Even the 911's engine has distinct life stages.

Whatever the iteration, nothing else sounds like a Porsche. When you start the car, you get this wonderful “guttural cough that builds into a raspy howl,” as Ezra described it to me. It’s a modest, but confident announcement to the neighborhood.

The Engine Is in the Back

Putting the heavy engine in the back should make the 911 impossible to control. But somehow, it works.

An oversimplified summary: cars perform best with the weight evenly distributed among its wheels. That’s why so many of the fastest cars have the engine, the heaviest component, in the middle, between the front and rear axles. Front-engine isn’t ideal, but most vehicles us civilians drive are configured this way, partly because the setup puts weight (grip) over the tires that do the steering.

The Porsche 911’s engine is in the back, partially over the rear axle. Accelerating with the heaviest part in the back, physics laws encourage the wrong end of the car to overtake the lighter front end. It’s like “an arrow shot tail-first,” which is how a writer described the rear-engine rear-wheel-drive Corsair in 1949. Unless it remains absolutely stable, any loss of grip will compel the car to turn itself backwards. And that’s before we even start talking about what that setup does to the steering.

Yes, the actual physics of a 911 are more nuanced than that. Thinking of the rear engine as the weight on a pendulum, eager to sway the string to which it’s attached, isn’t quite how it works in practice. Still, it’s a design with inherent handicaps that have benefitted from decades of refinement. When discussing the 911 with Joe Rogan, Elon Musk said (around the 1:58:00 mark), “To make it [the rear-engine setup] still work well is incredible.”

Even with the handicap of a rear engine, the GT3 RS sets incredible lap times, like 6:56.4 at the Nurburgring. That’s faster than a Porsche 918.

He’s right. It’s a peculiar car, which means driving one is a singular experience. One example of this that LeBlanc explained to me: You’re going into a turn, and feel the rear wheels losing grip. In most cars, you let off the throttle to recover. In a 911, you fight your instincts and accelerate. The engine presses down on the rear wheels, for more grip.

Truth Is in the Driving

Months ago, I finally drove a 911 for the first time. I’m too much of a wuss to have experienced the explanation myself. Besides, all the driver aids in a modern Porsche probably would’ve saved me before I had to make a decision like that. But the feel of a rear-engine car is noticeable even at low speeds. Every on-ramp, every hard turn, any time you’re going above 40 mph or braking hard, the information you get from the steering wheel and the seat is a different sensation than what you feel in just about any other car. Driving alone, I audibly said, “I get it now.”

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