Porsche 911 Carrera (996.2)

The classic 911 gets an infotainment upgrade of the official kind

MY 996 AND I MOVED, WITH SLIGHT trepidation, into the 21st century recently. No, we didn’t instantly acquire 100bhp and 100kg: we got connected in a digital sense.

Whilst I hadn’t exactly been losing sleep over the 996’s lack of smartphone connectivity, the fact remains that I can’t even remember where I stored the majority of my CD collection in this streaming age. Essentially, the musical possibilities from the original Becker-made head unit and CD multichanger (remember them?) were extremely limited, and the idea of being able to receive a call safely on the move was quite appealing.

A number of 996 and 997-owning friends have installed aftermarket set-ups, both single and double DIN, and I was contemplating doing the same when Porsche Classic announced its latest ‘classic’ infotainment system (PCCM in Porsche-speak, for Porsche Classic Communication Management), this time aimed at 996-era cars. At £1390.01 it’s significantly more expensive than many of the other options available, but then it has the kudos of being an official Porsche piece of equipment, so I decided to bite the bullet.

Porsche Centre Reading undertook the work, which in itself was something of a shock. Alongside rows of 992s, Boxsters and Taycans, I felt a small surge of pride from seeing the 996 hold its own amongst the newer metal, particularly under the arc lights of the forecourt.

I had naively assumed that fitting the unit would be a simple case of plug and play, but oh no, there was plenty of dismantling to be done, and the car was with them for a couple of days. In particular, in the 996 the fitment of a double-din unit means there’s no room for the HVAC unit in the main centre stack, and so it has to be repositioned at the bottom, below the oddments tray, as would have been the case in cars fitted with the original PCM from the factory. The oddments tray is actually a slightly different part if so configured, and so this had to be ordered specially. Then there was the antenna to fit, and the microphone, which sits on the steering-wheel boss. I can’t fault the standard of the work, or the customer service.

Downsides? Well, I’m not completely convinced that placing the input sockets in the tray was a good decision on my part. The alternative offered – inside the glovebox – would have been much neater. Then again, that would either have meant constantly crimping a wire running out of said glovebox to my phone, or placing the phone inside the glovebox, in which case I’d inevitably forget it when I walked off. I figured it would be less of a faff if the sockets were readily accessible.

The other issue is that by moving the HVAC controls to the bottom of the stack, it’s now impossible to do the ‘GT3 console delete’ that I had planned for my car. As well as being a cool nod to air-cooled variants, it would also remove the slightly odd pad you get on a 996 that juts into your left leg. The pedals are further away on a 997 and the stack is different, so it’s not an issue in those.

I’ll wait a month or two longer before writing too much now about how the system actually works, because I confess, Covid has rather curtailed the sort of trips where satnav might be a real bonus. Nevertheless, first impressions are that it’s rather like a simplified fourth-gen PCM (the previous Porsche mainstream system): not quite as fancy, but with the same familiar, easy functionality. It all works beautifully, without the weird random icons and micro-fonts so beloved of certain Japanese aftermarket systems.

Sadly, it’s also proved that as my car didn’t have the original Bose option and accompanying amp from new, what my set-up can actually deliver through the speakers regardless of the head unit is pretty feeble. Still, it’s hard to hear anything at all now over the flat-six’s growl with my Kline exhaust, so that isn’t a significant problem…

Date acquired May 2016 Total mileage 86,245 Mileage this month 183 Cost this month £1390 mpg this month 26.9

‘I naively assumed that fitting the unit would be a simple case of plug and play…’