What's in the issue

Considering the colossal success of the 356 Cabriolet, not to mention sports cars being defined by al fresco motoring throughout automotive history, it seems impossible to consider the 911 line-up without a convertible. Even so, Porsche waited twenty years to provide its dealership showroom visitors with a fully retractable roof for the company’s flagship offering, though an innovative (and subsequently regularly copied) semi-open-top body style was developed by Zuffenhausen’s engineering team in the mid-1960s, debuting on the 911 and its four-cylinder sibling, the 912. As we know, the 912 was introduced to the Porsche product portfolio on account of the 911 costing significantly more than the outgoing 356, resulting in slow sales of the ‘new Porsche for a new era’. The business wasn’t as cash-rich as it is today, meaning there simply wasn’t the budget to develop a new entry-level model. The solution was to fit a mildly tweaked version of the 356’s Type 616 flat-four into the then new 911 body shell. And so, the 912 was born. The manufacturer’s financial position also meant no budget was available to develop a Cabriolet version of the 911, even if rumours regarding changes to US road safety legislation (suggesting a ban on full drop-tops) were unfounded. Put simply, an open-top sports car requires a significant amount of chassis strengthening to achieve structural rigidity. It is therefore sensible to start with a Cabriolet and develop the equivalent coupe thereafter. Porsche hadn’t anticipated the need for a 911 with a fully foldable roof — in coupe form, the Neunelfer didn’t lend itself to the Cabriolet body style. A semi-open-top arrangement was the answer. Named after a legendary, death-defying road race (in which Porsche had excelled), Targa was applied to both the 911 and 912, living on to the present day and celebrating its sixtieth anniversary this year. The system has gone through various changes during the course of six decades, but continues to be a mainstay of the 911 line-up. Here’s to the next sixty years of Targa.