“Right now you can get a 911 for the price of a brand new, very nippy, small hatch. A flat-six-engined, 300bhp-plus, great-handling, loads-of-life-left, unfeasibly practical, bona fide Porsche 911 – for the cost of, say, a Vauxhall Corsa VXR. The catch? It’s the 996 model, the one lots of people ignore because it’s not a ‘proper’ 911; because it’s not air-cooled; because it shares too much with the Boxster including those funny headlights; or because it’s got an engine that will blow up.
Well, guess what. There is no catch. Googly headlamps apart, the Porsche 996 is a darned good 911. “
