The 10 Best Porsches That Aren’t 911s

Unless you’re a bit strange, the 911 will almost inevitably be the first car you think of when someone says ‘Porsche’. The company has spent over 60 years gradually refining the rear-mounted flat-six recipe to the point where it’s the default choice for an all-rounder sports car, and Porsche wouldn’t be what it is without it.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have plenty of other crackers in its back catalogue, though – join us for a canter through our 10 favourite Porsches that aren’t 911s, and feel free to shout at us if you disagree with our takes.

10. 912

Yep, it looks like an old air-cooled 911, but head round the back of the 912 and pop the engine cover, and it’ll appear someone’s nicked two of your cylinders. Launched in 1965 as a more affordable flat-four version of the then-new 911, it pretty quickly disappeared again in 1969, only to briefly reappear in North America as the fuel-injected 912E between 1975 and 1976.

It’s those early cars that get our pick, though. Once seen as inferior to the early 911 and worth pocket change as a result, their comparative rarity and the inevitable air-cooled Porsche effect have sent prices a bit silly, but they’re still more attainable than plenty of their six-cylinder big brothers.

9. 944 Turbo

Porsche’s foray into the world of front-engined sports cars was excellent from the start, and we simply won’t sit here and listen to armchair critics disparaging the 924 ‘because it had the engine from a van’. Even if it did.

That said, this lineage really hit its stride when the 924’s replacement, the 944, had a turbo attached to its 2.5-litre engine. With 217bhp to begin with, later increasing to 247bhp, and that sweetly balanced transaxle layout, it was one of the quickest and best-handling junior sports cars of its day, and remains a relatively affordable and reliable classic today.

8. Boxster (986)

Porsche wasn’t in particularly good shape in the mid-1990s, and if it wasn’t for the fact that the original, instant smash hit Boxster underpinned the manufacturer’s lineup with a more affordable sports car, it may well not have been around today.

That’s one reason to love the 986 Boxster. The other is that it’s just brilliant – a gorgeous chassis paired with a proper flat-six engine, only this time in the middle of the car, where any other manufacturer would have moved it decades ago anyway. To this day, it serves as a neat companion to the 911 in Porsche’s range, but the importance of the original can’t be understated – nor can how temptingly cheap it can be found these days.

7. Porsche 928 GTS

Launched in 1977, the 928 was initially conceived to replace the 911 at the pinnacle of Porsche’s range. Thankfully, the company saw sense, but that doesn’t lessen the appeal of the only front-engined V8 coupe the company’s ever made.

Over a single generation, it lived a long life of 18 years and spawned many variants. The best of the bunch, though, came towards the end of its life. 1992’s GTS brought a bigger 5.4-litre, 345bhp engine and managed to keep the 928’s 1970s styling fresh for the 1990s. Unsurprisingly, they’re among the most sought-after of all the 928s today.

6. 918 Spyder

If anyone was in any doubt that a hybrid supercar could work, the ‘Holy Trinity’ of circa 2013 silenced the naysayers. Among the more theatrical LaFerrari and McLaren P1, Porsche’s 918 Spyder may have seemed a little buttoned-up, but with its comparatively plush interior and somewhat usable EV-only range, it’s probably the one that’s most informed the direction performance PHEVs have gone in since.

Oh yeah, there’s also the small matter of it having a snarling 4.6-litre naturally aspirated V8 derived from the one found in the RS Spyder LMP2 car, and which itself is the basis for the unit in the new 963 Le Mans racer. Even without the rest of the 918 Spyder’s innovations, that alone makes it worthy of a spot on this list.

5. 968 Club Sport

The 968 is arguably the most oft-forgotten of Porsche’s trio of front-engined four-cylinder sports cars, perhaps because it lived a relatively short life, in production from 1991 until just 1995. It nonetheless delivered one of the decade’s best lightweight sports cars in the form of the Club Sport, though.

Most unnecessary luxuries were gone, the suspension was lower, and the tyres were wider. It was finished off with some excellent optional ‘Club Sport’ graphics and a set of almost deliriously cool Cup-style five-spoke wheels, usually finished in body colour. It was also powered by a thumping four-cylinder displacing 3.0 litres, an engine capacity usually left to the realms of at least six cylinders.

4. 356 Speedster

Porsche’s first ever model, and its sole roadgoing offering until the 911 turned up in 1963, the 356 just seems to get prettier with every passing day. In any of its many guises, it’s as pure and delicate to drive as it is to look at, but nothing can compare with the glamour of the Speedster.

Launched in 1954 to appeal to the booming American market, the open-top Speedster featured pared-back styling and a chopped-down windscreen compared to the regular 356 Cabriolet. Conceived as a stripped-back, lower-cost entry point to the range, in an inevitable twist of irony, it’s now comfortably among the most desirable and expensive versions of the 356.

3. 959

Like the 912, the 959 looked like a contemporary 911, but wasn’t one. Unlike the 912, though, it was developed as an utter technological tour de force, a demonstration of what was possible in the late 1980s.

Things like its sequential twin turbos, torque-shuffling all-wheel drive system, automatically height-adjustable suspension and carbon kevlar body panels wouldn’t sound out of place on a supercar launched today, let alone one that went on sale in 1986. For better or worse, it may well have been the jumping-off point for today’s swathes of ultra tech-focused performance machines – but very few of them will ever be as cool as the 959.

2. 718 Cayman GT4 RS

Those who’d spent over two decades huffily dismissing the Boxster, and later its hardtop Cayman sibling, as ‘poor man’s Porsches’, were finally and irreversibly silenced by the arrival of the ultra hardcore 718 Cayman GT4 RS in 2021.

We could talk about its astounding chassis balance, the fact that it generates 25 per cent more downforce than the already hardcore GT4, or its 7:04.511 Nürburgring lap time that left several more senior supercars red-faced. As far as we’re concerned, though, the conversation is utterly dominated by its astonishing 490bhp, naturally aspirated 4.0-litre engine.

With an air intake immediately behind your head, it’s an otherworldly experience, the car feeling like it’s going to suck all your internal organs directly into the bowels of the engine as it howls its way to 9000rpm. It’s likely to be the final combustion-powered Cayman, but if it is, what a way to go out.

1. Carrera GT

Where do you even begin with the Carrera GT? Maybe with the fact that it arrived at a pivotal time for the supercar, as it was beginning its transition from analogue to digital. Maybe with its infamously spikey handling (since somewhat tamed by advances in tyre tech), or its manual gearbox, topped off with a simple balsa wood gearknob and a racing-style clutch with a tendency to embarrass even the most skilled of drivers.

Like the GT4 RS, though, the Carrera GT is a car that’s really all about its engine. Its naturally aspirated, 5.7-litre V10, first designed for a dead-end Formula 1 effort and then refined via a scrapped Le Mans racer, is quite simply one of the finest powerplants to ever find its way into a road car. The noise, the response, the 603bhp of peak power, the 8400rpm redline – everything about it is sensational, an ode to the art of internal combustion. For that reason, it tops this list.