Spoiler Alert

Five rare, special edition Porsches: the only 911 R in India, one of only two of the current generation GT3, the only GT3 RS, the only 50th anniversary 911 and the first of only seven Cayman GT4s to come to India are brought together for the very first time to celebrate 70 years of the storied brand

- Sirish Chandran

NOT EVERYBODY GETS the 911. The template has remained unchanged, the engine still hangs off the back, an old 911 looks like a new 911 and the variants are far too many for a sane human being to remember. A Ferrari, a Lamborghini, they need no explanation. You come into money, buy an Italian supercar, and a Punjabi in Birmingham will rap about it. Blow that dough on a Porsche and you’re guaranteed to go mad explaining why your Turbo costs twice as much as a Carrera even though they’re both turbo’d and basically look the same.

Most of all the numbers make no bloody sense. How does 991 follow 997? How does 996 follow 993? And why the random application of logic when 997 did follow 996? No wonder colleagues rifling through the proofs of this magazine’s cover on the design desk moaned, “but they’re all 911s!”

The thing is, Porsches are cars for the proper, proper enthusiast, especially here in India where there is no backstory. Maharajas didn’t buy Porsches. There’s only one 356 in the country, which is sequestered from the public eye. Nobody in Bollywood did a James Dean. We didn’t have the equivalent of Le Mans to go to as kids. India is the only major world power that doesn’t host a round of the Porsche Cup races (and Switzerland where motorsport is banned). Except for a big-ass wing sticking off the back of a GT3 there’s nothing extrovert about a 911 either. It’s why Delhi doesn’t do 911s.