Living The Dream

When you’re offered an opportunity to spend a weekend in Germany driving one of your favourite sportscars in the world, what do you say? Oh Hell Yes!

- Ishan Raghava

The Porsche 911, in all its forms over the past 70 years, is perhaps one of the most unique sports cars in the world. The sloping roof and the flared arches – the Coke bottle shape as some designers refer to it – is something that has constantly evolved in a typical German fashion over the decades.

And to give credit where credit’s due, the 911 – owing to Porsche’s brilliant engineering – has become, perhaps, the only rear-engine car that has been refined to a degree where it virtually defies the laws of physics. Of course, I could go on-and-on about what makes the 911 so special, but let’s focus, for once, on the most important thing here – me getting an opportunity to spend a weekend driving the latest generation of the 911 (the 992) on the amazing highways of Germany and also in the beautiful Black Forest region.

The stuff of dreams

Now that I’ve truly made you envious of me, it’s time for a confession. I’ve been a 911 fan for as long as I can remember. In the days when we didn’t have mobile phones or even the Internet, I’d read about the Porsche 911 in magazines. Those were the days when things were analogue – both magazines and cars – and if you wanted stability control, you had it readily available. It was called a long travel throttle, which you squeezed just enough to make sure your rear-engined 911 didn’t suddenly spin and spit you off the road.

Decoding the 992

The original formula of the standard 911, then, hasn’t changed much over the past 7 decades. It’s a (relatively) small sports car with 2+2 seating – to be honest, though, the rear seats are pretty much unusable and can best be used for storing luggage – and the engine is still hanging off the rear axle.