Porsche 911 (996) Turbo

1998, and there I stood, a young lad at the factory stand at the Autosalon, thinking: this is never going to work. Porsche launches the first water-cooled 911, with those headlights everyone has been calling 'poached eggs' ever since. The purists were in tears over the old air-cooled engines, the 993 was canonised in record time, and according to the internet the 996 was instantly the worst thing Porsche had ever made.

And then came the Turbo. And everyone went very quiet.

Because that is what the 996 is all about, at its core. The regular Carreras had that notorious IMS bearing that still gives the whole forum nightmares. Not the Turbo. It got the Mezger engine, the legendary powerplant whose bloodline runs straight back to the 911 GT1 racing machines. Two turbos, variable cam timing, and a cast-iron composure that half of Le Mans could only dream of. In short: the 996 Turbo is the car that made every 996 critic shut up in a single stroke.

420 hp from a 3.6 litre six-cylinder boxer, at a time when most supercars were not even in the ballpark. All-wheel drive that lays the power neatly onto all four wheels, so that even in the rain on the M25 heading to Silverstone you do not immediately park it backwards in the barrier. And best of all: this example is a manual. Six gears, stir it yourself, no paddles, no electronics deciding for you when you are allowed to enjoy yourself. That gets rarer with every passing year, and the people who know are already paying handsomely for it.

Right, back to the car waiting for us here in Katwijk. A 996 Turbo from 2002, in Basaltschwarz Metallic, with a black leather interior. Black on black, no frills, exactly as a Turbo should be: quietly, invisibly fast. The sort of car that pulls up unnoticed at the lights beside some tanned City banker in his Cayenne, and by the time the owner works out what has happened, all he catches is your number plate disappearing.

What makes this particular Turbo special is the paperwork. A Swiss car, delivered in February 2002 by the City Garage in St. Gallen, and thereafter properly looked after by the Porsche Zentrum Basel and later by various Swiss and French specialists. I have the complete service booklet in front of me and it reads like a meticulously kept diary: annual services, brake fluid replaced every time, condition reports for the long-term warranty neatly filled in right up to eight years. A car that was taken seriously its entire life.

In 2021 it received a substantial service at a specialist, the kind these engines love: spark plugs and coils replaced, engine oil, gearbox oil and differential oil changed, coolant, brake fluid, new brake discs and pads all round, new radiators up front, and the oil level sensor replaced. Precisely the things a maturing 996 Turbo needs to keep going for decades more. No deferred maintenance, no 'we will do that later'.

And then the point that really matters. This is the 996 Turbo at the moment the market finally understood what it always was: the last affordable Mezger Turbo, manual, in the most understated colour combination you could dream up. The 993 Turbo is now unaffordable, the 997 Turbo with a manual box is getting scarce too, and this sits precisely in the gap between them. The car you can still buy before everyone else wakes up.

In my Squadra Italia days at Zandvoort I saw enough people suffer in the Tarzan corner to know what all-wheel drive and 420 hp do for your confidence. This car does all of that, and then simply drives quietly home with the air conditioning on.

Whoever has the nerve to go through life in black on black with a stick shift knows where to find it.

Key features

• 996 Turbo with the legendary Mezger engine (no IMS bearing worries)
• 420 hp from a 3.6 litre twin-turbo boxer
• Manual six-speed gearbox, increasingly rare and sought after
• Basaltschwarz Metallic with black leather interior
• All-wheel drive for all-season use
• Swiss delivery, complete and documented service booklet
• Maintained by Porsche Zentrum Basel and Swiss/French specialists
• Extensive service in 2021 (spark plugs, coils, brakes all round, radiators, fluids)
• Paint thickness report present and transparently available

Between two bends of the Großglockner

Nick Slinger

Copywriter · HooG Selections