TARGA + TIPTRONIC

Targa + Tiptronic? Two words guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of any hardcore Porsche enthusiast, but is that really fair?

Well, we certainly felt it was probably unfair to pitch the combination of the two into a mix of manual Coupes, but we also felt that it was essential to have a Targa present, given that, with its innovative sliding roof, it represented a very different take on the Targa theme.

Now I don't mind a bit of open roof action (my other car is an MX-5, after all), but I'm not hugely keen on cars that were conceived as a fixed head first, then only to be given the chop. The Targa is sort of a halfway house largely because it retains the Coupe’s profile, when the glass is retracted, unlike the Cabrio, which takes on the appearance of a pram when the roof is folded back.

Based on the Cabrio shell, the Targa added 145kg to the weight of the base 993 C2, but that's hardly the point. The Targa is devised for a different kind of buyer and, on this very pleasant and unseasonably warm February day, blatting along through the narrow lanes on the Essex/suffolk borders, is really rather splendid.

There's certainly no reason to rush, but that is more down to the Tiptronic transmission. The 993 was Porsche’s best-selling auto at that point in the 911’s history. Sure it's got steering wheel mounted button shifts, and you can also use the stick to climb up and down the four ratios and hold it in a gear, but it is very much a blunt instrument, slurring through the gears as if slightly drunk and robbing the driving experience of a good percentage of its vitality. If there's one area that has seen huge progress in recent years, it's that of the automated transmission. Sorry, but Tiptronic brings very little to the party.