GENERATIONS
The 993 was the final car to use air- cooled engines. To purists, no 911 since has been able to match it
As you look back along the 911 depreciation curve from the current 992 model, the expected gentle downward slope stops abruptly at the foot of a cliff-face in 1997, when the 993 was replaced by the 996. A plain, manual version of the 993 now fetches maybe three times as much as the equivalent later model. Can the 993 really be that good, or the 996 that bad? Should we all be buying 996s because they're criminally undervalued, or does that differential indicate that the 993 is peak 911, and the version to buy regardless of how the others are viewed?
It’s odd how time changes those views. When the 996 was launched it was mostly lauded as a step-change over the 993. And Porsche itself saw the 993 as a stopgap on a shoestring: those involved in its genesis must be surprised by its present hallowed status.
The preceding 964 had not been a success critically or commercially, especially in four-wheel-drive form. Work was already underway on the new water-cooled engines which would power the 996, but Porsche couldn’t wait for their completion. It was even considering binning the 911 altogether, again, and hired Ulrich Bez back to develop whatever would replace the 964. Bez reminded the board that the 911 IS Porsche, and there wasn’t the time or money to start work on a new car.
The financial crash of ’87 had badly affected Porsche’s sales and budgets. Bez was given about a fiver to do the 993, but the choices this forced him to make are exactly what makes the 993 catnip to Porsche purists now. He looked at buying in a water-cooled V8 from Audi, or speeding the production of the one being developed by Porsche for his proposed 989 saloon. All too expensive, so the luftgekuhlt flat-six stayed.
He got his way on the rear suspension, radically improving the ride comfort, noise and oversteery handling of the 964 by using the LSA – light, stable, agile –
