Porsche 911 | |
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Overview | |
Manufacturer | Porsche AG |
Production | 1963–present |
Assembly | Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany |
Body and chassis | |
Class | Sports car (S) |
Body style | 2-door coupé 2-door cabriolet 2-door Targa |
Layout | Rear-engine, rear-wheel drive / four-wheel drive |
Related |
Porsche Carrera GT Porsche Boxster Porsche 911 GT1 Porsche 911 GT2 Porsche 911 GT3 Porsche 912 Porsche 959 Ruf RGT |
Chronology | |
Predecessor | Porsche 356 |
The Porsche 911 (pronounced Nine Eleven or German: Neunelfer) is a two-door, 2+2 high performance and one of the most powerful sports cars made since 1963 by Porsche AG of Stuttgart, Germany. It has a rear-mounted six cylinder boxer engine and all round independent suspension. It has undergone continuous development, though the basic concept has remained little changed. The engines were air-cooled until the introduction of the Type 996 in 1998, with Porsche's "993" series, produced in model years 1994–1998, being the last of the air-cooled Porsches.
The 911 has been modified by private teams and by the factory itself for racing, rallying, and other forms of automotive competition. It is among the most successful competition cars. In the mid-1970s, naturally aspirated 911 Carrera RSRs won major world championship sports car races, such as Targa Florio and 24 Hours of Daytona, even against prototypes. The 911-derived 935 turbo also won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1979 and Porsche won World Championship for Makes titles in 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979 with 911-derived models.
In the 1999 international poll for the award of Car of the Century, the 911 came fifth. It is one of two in the top five that had remained continuously in production (the original Beetle remained in production until 2003), and was until 1998 a successful surviving application of the air- (now water-) cooled opposed rear-engine layout pioneered by its ancestor, the Volkswagen Beetle. It is one of the oldest sports coupé nameplates still in production and 1 000 000 have now been built (as of May 2017). "Around 150,000 911 cars from the model years 1964 to 1989 are still on the road today."Dilip Chhabria of DC Design (Dilip Chhabria Design Center Pvt Ltd) said that the most difficult car to customise "has to be the Porsche 911. It hasn’t dated since it was designed. It is a very desirable car. I have attempted to redraw, reskin, redesign it but could not do anything with it. I realised that it is difficult to alter the perfect design".