About 20 years ago, I first drove a Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7. The 1973 one with a ducktail spoiler. The legend. Only it wasn’t quite so valuable then, maybe £50,000 for a fabulous, original Touring version, and we thought that was a lot in those days.
It’s also getting on for 20 years since I first drove a BMW M3 CSL. The E46 generation. A £58,455 prospect but not so legendary then simply because it was brand new at the time, though it was still pretty epic. And it seems all the more so now. To the extent that I’d be more than happy to mention it in the same breath as that 911.
That 911. It belongs to collector-car broker Simon Kidston, having been his father’s from new. Back then he ran the European office of auction house Bonhams, in Geneva. We’d been out on a photo shoot with an important car that was being consigned to a sale by one of Simon’s clients and we had a few hours before the evening flight home. ‘Why not shoot my 911 too?’ And so we headed out, got the job in the bag and chased back across Geneva to catch that plane.
Simon is a committed driver and was behind the wheel of his Mercedes-Benz 500E, one of the greatest hot-rod business cars of its era. Keeping that V8 saloon in my sights meant overcoming the slight nag that comes into your mind when you push an unfamiliar 911 (and let’s face it, first time out in 911 demands time to attune). Yet the RS, despite being race-bred, simply felt agile rather than threatening. Light, fleet of foot, power, but certainly more than enough. A beautifully balanced package. Truly special.
