1994 Porsche 911 Carrera 2 review from UK and Ireland

Only needed routine servicing.

How this car got its legend status I will never know. If I'm brutally honest, I never really liked it, but everyone in the know (including the motoring press) kept on "buy a 911, they're unique, they're a legend, they're unlike anything else". I bought one, stupidly, and thought it would grow on me - it didn't.

As an engineer, I appreciated the high quality (if slightly idiosyncratic) engineering, and the way it never broke down. It sounded good too, and performance was acceptable (if no better than my previous M5). It also had tremendous brakes. A relatively practical car then, if a car of this type can be called practical.

But the rest of it, to be quite honest, was horrible. The dated (not even in an appealing way) and dull interior, the silly floor hinged pedals, and the downright bizarre handling. Some call the mastery of the 911's chassis a rite of passage in motoring. I call it a tiresome pain in the backside, and the chassis deeply flawed. My M5 was a far more pleasant companion on a twisty road, with oversteer in that car being something to savour, not a snappy 911 "moment" which soils the underwear, and comes nanoseconds after a pile of plough on understeer. A terrible chassis in my humble opinion!

I like a driver dependent car, but the 911 was too much. It was eventually replaced by two cars - an E36 BMW M3 Evolution, and a Caterham Super Seven for weekends. Both remind me that, unless you have the skills of Derek Bell, the 911 will never match a well balanced front engined, RWD chassis for sheer fun and exploitability. Not having a dirty great six cylinder engine in pendulum position behind the back wheels really does help the handling.