Pinky Lai ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS
Andy Brookes: How does it feel to see your design now at 25 years of age?
Pinky Lai: I feel very proud. I still do some cross-country driving between Spain and Germany and every time I spot a 996, it just brings back amazing memories. It still looks great among all the traffic of other cars and it isn’t a usual 911 for sure. It has a strong character compared to any contemporary 911. We managed to bring out two different front-end characters because of the headlamp change, and that hadn’t happened before in the history of Porsche. They were always circular; however, our headlamps were sculptural.
Lee Sibley: You described the opportunity with the 996 as Porsche’s last bullet. Deep down, did you think that you were designing the last 911?
PL: No, because there was another event going on almost at the same time for me. I had some drama in my personal life: I was showing up at the company part-time because I had to take care of my family and it was a nightmare. I said to Harm Lagaay, head of Style Porsche at the time, “I will make the time up but right now I need to look after my family.” So I split my time and over the next three weeks I did a lot of sketches and then one was picked, and that was it.
One of the leading
