GENERATIONS
When the going gets tough, the 911 goes for broke with the arrival of the wild and wayward Turbo
Across its seven decades and eight incarnations, the shape that perhaps best defines the 911 is the so-called G-Series. It’s a catch-all term that has come to describe all models built between 1974 and 1989, when the 911’s basic silhouette was significantly altered for the first time. Helping Porsche’s original premise to endure for a quarter of a century, the G-Series changes did much of the heavy lifting, excelling through a period when the relative shortcomings of early-1960s thinking were becoming ever more apparent
In 1974, when the G-Series made its debut, the 911 was in peril. Now over a decade old, it was under existential threat from new, more innovative Porsche designs such as the more affordable 924 and more refined 928, the luxury GT famously conceived in order to replace a car increasingly seen as a smoky, thirsty, noisy anachronism. The 911’s days were surely numbered.
The most obvious change that arrived with the G-Series was the new impact bumper, designed by Wolfgang Mobius to meet the 5mph deformability requirements introduced in the US, a market that accounted for around 60 per cent of Porsche’s annual sales at the time. Lots of people hated them and lots of people still do, but they would prove critical to the company’s survival, as would the introduction of Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection to the enlarged 2.7-litre flat-six to help reduce emissions and improve fuel economy. Inside, the cabin featured more modern seats with an integrated headrest, a design that would become a Porsche staple for over two decades.
A variety of higher-performance models bearing the Carrera moniker would follow, as would the 912E, an entry-level four-cylinder curio offered for a single year to bridge the gap between the outgoing 914 and incoming 924. But the car that defined an era was the internally coded Porsche 930, the original 911 Turbo.
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