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Comment by OldSchool | Hacker News Reader

If you appreciate great engineering as well as design, any one of the air-cooled cars is a remarkable car. I think most will agree however that the 2.7L engine was a low point in quality.

Yes, many completely ordinary cars today can match or out-accelerate a lot of the older cars mentioned in the article but that is only a single measure. If you're a "car person," you owe it to yourself to spend some time driving a 911 so that you can truly map that image to a physical experience.

That said for the 911, each of the cars that enthusiasts tend to love has its own character. You can give them all very similar performance specs on paper and driving something American, Italian, or German will still be a completely different experience; overall, the fastest car will not necessarily even feel the fastest; the slowest car that you can consistently drive the hardest might prove to be the most fun to drive.

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I have a vintage 911. It is fun as hell when the thing is running right, but it is never running right. Even the years they call "bullet proof" don't hold a candle to the reliability of a modern Japanese sports car (which I've also owned).

When you start to pull the car apart you see all the hacks that had to be done to modernize the car to keep the original chassis design alive. My favorite is the air conditioning. It is obvious that air conditioning was not part of the original design. Another favorite is the oil cooler under the front fender. There are oil lines that go all the way from the back of the car to the front just for cooling. The original car didn't have them because the engines were much smaller and ran cooler.

If anyone is considering buying an air cooled 911, I'd say unless you've cashed out a bunch of stock that is blowing a hole in your pocket, stay away. With the current cost of parts any common problem with the cars could easily be a $10k fix. Ask me how I know.

Similar experiences here. I liked my 911 quite a bit, but absolutely loved my Honda S2000.

For me it was a Subaru STI. I enjoyed it more in almost every way than the Porsche, other than how it looked. My father has a nice 90s Miyata. I've driven it quite a bit and for the money it is a pretty well thought out and fun vehicle. He's got less into the whole car than I have in my Porsche engine and trans.

Honda S2000 is the modern 911, I think. So silly they discontinued such a masterpiece. It can be had for peanuts in EU.

They discontinued it for the most basic reason any company stops producing a low-volume product: the demand just wasn't there. And it still isn't as much as predicted, as is evident by the slightly underwhelming sales of the Subaru BRZ and Toyota FR-S/86.

During development of the S2000 Honda bought many 911s under pseudonyms as benchmarks for track-testing. I think it paid off!

What year/miles was your 911?

Bit of hyperbole to say any common problem is a $10k fix.

Thanks for commenting. Yes, the A/C is useless (pre-1984) then almost useless until the 964 and the 993 got it right.

As for a $10K repair bill, it's certainly possible, especially if you recently bought the car and/or get hit with some internal engine/trans problems.

These air-cooled 911's seem to be worth keeping on the road at least. There are many examples of other still high-end cars that just depreciate relentlessly until the last owner gets hit with a repair bill that's more than the car is worth and it goes to the junkyard.

I found myself thinking something today that I've thought to myself before when looking at a particular car. It basically boils down to, "I can't believe how ugly they made the Gen Current Mustang. I mean, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, the Gen Current - 1 has the same problems. But the Gen Current - 2, now that's not a bad looking car."

Repeat for the last 15 years.

There is a certain continuum of conservativism that one brings to their appreciation for fashion. Some people want ever-lasting stability. Some people want to understand what they have on their hands. And some people want to immerse themselves in the bewildering stream of ever-changing trends.

I see some merit in each. Ultimately, I'd like to be most comfortable in that river of change, but hell, I got work to do.

> the slowest car that you can consistently drive the hardest might prove to be the most fun to drive.

Daihatsu Copen. Dirt cheap, street legal, go-kart with a license plate.

What's missing from most cars today, and most drivers experiences, is a manual transmission. I hadn't driven one in about 15 years, and when I decided to buy a sportier car for fun driving, it was really hard to find one in my (cheap) price range. Are cars with the paddle shifter thing anything like a clutched manual transmission? It always seemed to me that they were just throwing software into the mix.

You can get a used Cayman S with six speed manual transmission for under 30k USD nowadays, if you're still looking. It's mid-engine as well, so it has better weight distribution than the 911. It's a shame that they have to gimp the Cayman platform so it doesn't take away sales from the 911, though.

The 987.1 (pre-'08) Cayman S that you'll find for under 30k is plagued by the IMS bearing issue that ruined 996 prices and early Boxsters, though. I'd spend ~40k and get a 987.2 instead. It'll hold value enough to make the price difference worth it, and even if a low percentage of engines actually fail, the peace of mind is very nice to have.

Plus they fixed a lot of other issues (better air-oil separator, more oil pumps, power steering heat soak) that will crop up if you ever take one to the track.

Overall I agree, though, it's a shame they keep holding back on the Cayman to keep the 911 on top. The 911 is an amazing car but there's no reason they should need to keep hacking around physics to keep the rear engine dream alive.

I had heard about the IMS issue, but it seemed like it didn't affect most people. Good info.

I'm wondering if early Boxsters and 996s might be good values now because there are fixes for the IMS bearing issue on the market. I've read it can be done with a clutch job.

I think the IMS issue may make the 987.1 Cayman and 996 911 cars some of the best deals out there today - it seems like the IMS issues don't affect too many cars (and the issues may have been over-reported on Porsche forums), and there are solutions like the IMS Guardian (http://theimsguardian.com/) to detect IMS failure before it happens.

To me, a 996 sounds like a great deal today because prices are driven down by people who don't like the IMS issue and the egg-shaped headlights.

Mazda still puts manuals in everything.

Cooper Minis are cheap and available in manual. I recommend getting the S model; the turbo makes a huge difference.

Totally agree. There's nothing like the feeling of dropping down a gear and hearing the machine come on boost. That whole experience alone is a pleasure to drive a manual.

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