Porsche 911

Porsche 911, Ferdinand Alexander Porsche
Charles01, CC BY-SA 3.0

The sports car with a rear engine and sloping roofline – shown in 1963 and still made in new form today.

Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, designed the successor to the Porsche 356. It was shown in Frankfurt in 1963 as the 901, but was renamed 911 because Peugeot held the rights to three-digit names with a zero in the middle.

The basic form has been kept through every generation, and the 911 has become one of motoring’s best-known examples of a form developed in small steps.

Materials: Sheet steel, unitary body

Manufacture: Made by Porsche in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen.

Round headlamps in the wings and an evenly sloping roofline.

An air-cooled flat-six engine at the rear (until 1998).

Slim bumpers on early cars; larger, impact-absorbing bumpers from 1974.

The engine is a six-cylinder boxer at the rear, air-cooled until 1998, when the 996 generation was given water cooling.

Round headlights that stand up on the front wings, a sloping rear and a short wheelbase with the engine behind the rear axle.

The Targa from 1966 had a fixed roll bar and removable roof, the Carrera RS 2.7 from 1973 was a lightweight sports version and the Turbo arrived in 1975.