Adapt To Survive

Porsche rolled the dice with the 996. Two decades on from its launch, it has found a true place in the hearts of enthusiasts.

- Simon Jackson

For the radical new broom that was the 996 and everything involved in its creation, we can party thank the 964 generation of 911. Such was the 964’s perceived shortcomings in the eyes of some at the heart of Porsche (and beyond), that it kick-started a plan with dramatic stepchanges from which some are still reeling to this day – twenty years later. Though the 964’s replacement, the 993, would prove so popular that it had some folk questioning if such departures were really necessary at all was largely irrelevant, it was too little, too late. For Type 996 the wheels were already in motion, wheels that were part of a Porsche project worth one billion US dollars, a staggering amount of money today, even more so back in the mid- to late-1990s when the funds were raised from shareholders. Undoubtedly getting sign-off from Porsche’s (habitually traditional and judicious) supervisory board on such an expensive, and different project, would not have been so easy had it not been convinced that desperate times were calling for desperate measures. Though you might assume the 911’s shift from air- to water-cooled engines, or the sharing of a wealth of parts between it and the entry-level two-seater Boxster was sea change enough, there was more. In order to effect the changes the 996 required, the very internal workings of Porsche would come in for an overhaul equally as profound in nature.