A BLAST OF FRESH AIR
CARS, LIKE PEOPLE, are taking longer to age. When I was a youngster in the 1970s, it wasn’t unusual for a family hack to be worn out by the time it was four or five years old. Resprays were common. They broke down. Stuff stopped working. In the early Noughties, my 1974 BMW 2002 felt far more ancient than my 1989 BMW 320i Convertible does today. My wife’s decadeold daily driver still seems new. And I’m not convinced it’s simply because I’m so much older, too.
In 1994, it was a commonly held belief within senior Porsche management that the 911 had been in this world too long: a rear-engined, air-cooled anachronism. Time for change. Of course, we’d heard that before, hence the Porsche 928 and the various front-engined, transaxle four-cylinders. In 1989, there had been a step-change from the impact-bumper 911 of the 1970s into the 964 generation. It was “86 per cent new”, re-engineered to accommodate four-wheel drive and thereby rid the 911 of its widow-maker rep: it was actually launched as the AWD Carrera 4. Yet it barely looked any different. Old before its time.
The 993 generation was regarded as the 911’s last chance, to capitalise on the 964’s regenerated underpinnings but bring the styling into the modern era. Just don’t get in the way of Porsche’s hope for the future: the four-door 989. However, prescient that may seem in a world used to the Cayenne and Panamera, it was radical thinking back then. As it turned out, too radical. And too expensive. Cue the 989 project’s cancellation in 1992 and the exit of technical director Ulrich Bez.
Bez had two stints at Porsche, working
