The essential sports car

Of course I'm going to bring up the Porsche 911 Carrera! Not just the essential sports car, but the essence of a sports car. Its probably the only sports car that's been in production for such a long time (since 1964). As to why it is that a car built for competition had its engine hung behind the rear axle in defiance of conventional physics...well, apparently the good Dr. Porsche felt something like this, "It is easy to do things the conventional way. But to win while making things different, that is something." And how. Over the years, the 911's rear wheels swelled up, along with flared rear fenders. There was ballast in the front bumpers for a while to quell the beast. New driving techniques were invented to cope with the inevitable physics. And later the electronics were brought in as well, the whole alphabet soup of ABS, PSM, PASM and whatnot - some of which is actually good, driving-wise. All built to prevent the tail of the thing swinging around and sending the car into the hedges, tracing a glorious slow arc like a giant pendulum. This tends to happen less with the late-year models though. And then there's the whole debate between the air-cooled purists and the water-cooled progressives - since from 1999 onwards, the Carrera switched to water-cooled engines.

Another interesting yet mystifying fact - California has the highest concentration of Porsches in the world. Interesting definitely, but why mystifying? Well, if you're in California, think about the number of Porsches, particularly Carreras that you've seen driving down Highway 1 or zipping through the Santa Cruz mountains, the Sierras or whatever. Next to zero, right? Mystifying. Why? Because though there's a bunch of (mostly old, mostly modified) Porsches that are being used for track, most of them are poser-mobiles, hapless Porsches locked into silly little one year 7000 mile leases. Not good for the cars, but definitely good for the rest of us. You can get a nice 1999 Carrera with around 40k miles for anywhere between $30,000 to $50,000, depending on the exact model and condition. Not bad, eh? But remember, the best recipe to enjoy a Porsche is to strap in, put cellphone on mute, find a twisty mountain B-road and engage warp-drive!