SIZE MATTERS
As a subscriber, many thanks for the October 2017 issue – all the 928 stuff was very interesting – as was the 993/996 article.
As the owner of a 1995 993 Carrera 4, I was interested in the point made that one (modest) reason for the need for the 996 was that the 993 was too small. Ironically, I have always thought that the sheer practicality of the air-cooled 911s was predicated on the fact that they were narrow. By and large, length in a car doesn’t matter (except for parking) but excess width is what kills usability. So this got me thinking a bit about dimensions. You refer in one of the 928 articles to 'the great white shark' and I can recall when the 928 first came out, thinking what a big car it was. However, even though it still looks imposing, I was surprised to learn that, dimensionally, the 928 and the 991 are extremely close in size. Furthermore the Cayman 981 is bigger than a 993 (see below).
I guess we all have to live with the fact that cars are growing in size (I swear the current BMW 3 series is the same size as a 5 series of a decade ago). Still not sure why, though!
Keep up the good work. Nick Paterson-morgan
928 Length: 4520mm Width: 1890mm
991 Length: 4499mm Width: 1808mm
993 (non-s) Length: 4260mm Width: 1735mm
Cayman 981 Length: 4379mm Width: 1801mm
Steve Bennett replies: We think the modest increase in width of the 996 over the 993 was probably needed and demanded. Certainly the 996 and 997 hit a modern sweet-spot for 911 size, the 991 being just slightly too wide to be comfortable on narrow UK roads. Its size relative to the 928 is interesting. It really is the GT car now. Glad you enjoyed the 928 stuff. We had fun putting it together.