These are the rare Porsches we just quizzed you on

Here we have the car Porsche thought would replace the 911. Oh, how wrong they were. Luckily, they realised their mistake in time and sold the 928 alongside the 911. And this is a truly good thing, not just because the 911 lived, but because it allowed the 928 to become one of the best retro GT cars you can buy today.

It’s the first and last big GT ever offered by Porsche, with 50:50 weight distribution, advanced V8 engines and suspension, and a huge boot made it the long-range Porsche, ready to cover continents at the drop of a hat.

The GTS is the ultimate 928 – in both senses of the word – with the biggest V8 engine ever offered in a Porsche coupe: 5.4 litres of German V8 sending 345bhp and 369lb ft through a rear transaxle. Tasty.

Some would say that the 924 Carrera GT was the car the 924 should have been from the outset. We tend to agree. 

With a fuel-injected, intercooled, turbocharged 2.0-litre engine making 210bhp (in 1981, we might add), it was a front-engined Porsche finally worthy of the badge. The 924 was always a lovely, balanced thing – thanks to the transaxle setup, 48:52 front to rear weight distribution and fully independent suspension – but now it had the power to back it up.

The Carrera part in the name is more than just a badge – this is the limited-run homologation model that allowed the race-ready 924 to qualify for competition.

This is the car that pretty much made Porsche. In 1955, trying to crack the lucrative American market with a small, 75bhp German coupe was always going to be an ask. 

So, famed importer Max Hoffman – also known for his role in the gorgeous Mercedes 300SL and BMW 507 – suggested a convertible, lightweight, stripped-out and ultimately cheap version of the 356. 

Porsche responded with the Speedster, a car designed to race on Sunday and commute on Monday. It was an instant hit thanks to its comparatively low price and high-tech features (for the time, we might add) such as four-wheel independent suspension and anti-roll bars, which also made it seriously competitive at both hill climbs and circuit racing events.

As you know, the GT3 is the lightened, track-ready version of the everyday supercar. So, it does beg the question why the GT3 Clubsport ever existed. 

After all, the regular 996 GT3 already had the famed, Mezger-designed, flat six with 360bhp, as well as bigger brakes, lower suspension, lightweight wheels and increased downforce over the standard 911. So, ready to race, no?

Well, somewhere along the line, Porsche came up with the ‘Clubsport’ package – replacing the front seats with racing buckets with racing harnesses, a roll cage and bolt-in fire extinguisher.

Classic 911s have a bit of a reputation for being a touch on the tricky side. 

And the most dangerous – and therefore astonishingly manly – is the 930 Turbo. It was also known as the ‘Widow Maker’ and ’Yuppie Killer’ – expensive enough that only bankers could afford them and so difficult to drive that, well, it was quite dangerous. That was thanks to turbos that worked in a kind of ‘nothing, nothing… OHMYGOODGODWHHHHHHHAAAAA’ fashion, and lift-off oversteer best described as ‘instantly lethal’. And the fact that, as the fastest car production car Germany made at the time, you were usually travelling at a brisk clip when you did crash. At least you had the classic 911 lines to enjoy before your untimely demise.

The ‘flat nose’ variant did away with the most recognisable part of the 911 and, unsurprisingly enough, just 948 customers decided to stray from the classic 930 lines and order the Flachbau option from the factory.

Nothing helps you enjoy the wind in your hair more than exponentially increasing the amount of wind. We think.

This, presumably, was Porsche’s idea with the 996 Turbo S Cabriolet, which offered 450 horsepower’s worth of air available at the press of a pedal. The top speed of 190mph was likely a touch of overkill, and would have made for a fairly blustery cabin, but we’ve had worse ideas.

As legendary supercars go, the 959 stands strong in the pantheon of greats. Purple language aside, the 959 was actually a serious bit of kit when it debuted in 1986. 

How serious? Well, it broke the record for the fastest street-legal production car with a top speed of 195mph. The S model, which this particular car is, was capable of 197mph. Heady figures indeed.

The reason for all this speed was that the 959 was designed to compete in Group B rally – arguably the greatest, if most lethal, rally series ever – and, like most truly great Porsches, the rules required a road-going version. While they were developing the 959, however, Porsche execs shifted their gaze from Group B to a road-going, no-holds-barred, technological weapon. 

So, the 959 was capable of zero to 62 in 3.7 seconds, which is monumentally fast, even by today’s standards. It had a trick four-wheel-drive system, a 444bhp version of the 2.85-litre engine from Porsche’s ‘Moby Dick’ 935 race car and a body made from aluminium and kevlar. There was also auto-levelling suspension, torque distribution, hollow magnesium alloy wheels and tyre pressure monitors. Which, we’re sure you’ll agree, is some serious tech. In fact, the 959 is recognised as the harbinger of high-tech supercars, where raw power and relatively simple mechanical engineering gave way to near-as-makes-no-difference rocket science.   

This particular one is a bit of an aberration, then. The 959 S is about 100kg lighter than the standard car, thanks to conventional suspension and a stripped interior, and also features a roll cage and racing harnesses. Only 29 of the 959 S model – complete with a painfully rare, 515bhp version of the 2.85-litre flat six.

Looks lovely, doesn’t it? The classic 964 lines, with some beefy turbo haunches to round out the package. Well, it’s actually a lot more than that – this is one of the rarest 911s you can buy. Only 1,500 Turbo and Turbo S 964s were ever built with a 3.6-litre engine, and only for 1993 and 1994.

“Pfft… 1,500 cars? That’s not rare,” you say. And you’re right. This particular car is, however, as it’s fitted with a non-flat nose and the ‘X88’ package (bigger turbo, better cams and cylinder heads, and a ZF locking diff) for a total of 385bhp. And it’s one of just 17 cars to get this sort of treatment. And that’s pretty rare.

Here it is: the most powerful 996 ever built. 

Thanks to a pair of turbochargers bolted to the 3.6-litre flat six, 483bhp was on offer, which drivers were expected to try and deploy through a six-speed manual and rear-wheel drive. Unsurprisingly enough, it did require a bit of attention to arrive at your intended destination and not the pearly gates.

The Clubsport version, in grand Porsche tradition, saw everything not directly related to speed or safety tossed in favour of a 100kg saving over the standard 911 Turbo of the time. 

Yep, this is the car that one-upped the 996 GT3 Clubsport, which was no shrinking violet to begin with. 

Like so many of Porsche’s greatest hits, the 996 GT3 RS has roots in motorsport and, more specifically, homologation – Porsche wanted to qualify the GT3 RSR for racing. So, the road-going version of the RSR got a full roll cage, wider tyres, track-ready suspension and a larger rear spoiler than the regular GT3, before going on a serious diet to end up 50 kilos lighter than the standard model. The result was a 375bhp, 1,360kg, 191mph racer. With numberplates. 

Up until recently, the 912 E was one of Porsche’s least-popular cars – at least for collectors – who viewed it as a cut-price, off-brand 911, and pretty much worthless as a result. So, it’s probably your last chance to get the classic mid-1970s Porsche shape for something that even resembles a fair sum of money. 

And it’s not like you’re giving much away – sure, there are four cylinders instead of six, and ‘912 E’ certainly doesn’t have the same ring as ‘911 S’, but it was actually quite a performer. With the same body, suspension and brakes as the 1975 2.7 Carrera, it was a superb handler, and the lower weight of the fuel-injected, 2.0-litre flat four engine meant it was less likely to pendulum out of corners than its more powerful brother. 

While 90bhp from a fuel-injected four isn’t going to set anyone’s trousers on fire, the streamlined body and low weight meant that 115mph was still on the cards.  

The original 912 is going for serious money now, and we don’t think it’s long before the 912 E follows suit. 

Few liveries are more eye-catching or desirable than Martini’s. Getting a glimpse of the vermouth-maker’s colours adorning the legendary 917 and 935 is truly jaw-dropping moment. 

And, as it turns out, the colours work pretty well on a standard 991, especially over a white base coat. Aside from that, this is really just a limited-run special (40 in white, 40 in black), with lots of toys thrown in, like the Sport Chrono and Aerokit Cup packages. Still, we wouldn’t kick it out of our garage.

Design by Porsche. Power by Volkswagen. With all the engine/chassis/architecture sharing that’s going on these days, that statement isn’t as laughable as it was in 1969, when Porsche launched the 914.

Maligned for much of its life, it’s currently undergoing quite a renaissance, thanks to its combination of a mid-mounted air-cooled engine, five-speed manual, fully independent suspension, four-wheel disc brakes and the fact that it has a Porsche badge on the front.

And the daddy of all 914s is the 914/6 – yep, a 914 with a 2.0-litre flat six, pulled from a 911. So, it’s a real Porsche with a real Porsche, air-cooled engine. And that made it expensive at the time – nearly as expensive as a 911, which looked better and had better history. Just 3,300 were sold over three years, which now makes it a properly collectable car, not to mention the spiritual ancestor of the Boxster.