What's in the issue

Welcome to the September issue of Classic Porsche magazine, where — as you’ll discover across the following pages — we highlight the fact more than seventy percent of all the Porsche sports cars ever manufactured remain on the road today. Considering the oldest of these vehicles dates all the way back to 1948, that’s an extraordinary statistic. Moreover, Porsches haven’t always been afforded the financial worth they enjoy today. Indeed, there was a time these cars were in the doldrums, with only a handful of dedicated marque enthusiasts prepared to spend big on repair and restoration. It is, then, all the more remarkable so many early Porsche sports cars have survived to the present day. It is credit to the quality of these cars, as well as the devotion of past owners, that so many remain in excellent condition, even without the kind of restoration now serving as a staple of our editorial content. Generally, even Porsche sports cars in a state of disrepair have been saved from the great scrapyard in the sky. Granted, present-day owners often find themselves having to unpick questionable repairs carried out decades earlier, when the money available for repair was commensurate with the vehicle’s value in period, but in the grand scheme of things, this is a minor frustration. The simple fact is these cars have been loved and kept alive (admittedly, some barely) because their owners just couldn’t stand the idea of scrapping them. All Porsches have this effect on their owners, but this is especially true of products from the manufacturer’s era of air-cooled cars. The graceful evolution of design and engineering across five decades of production, from arrival of the 356 to discontinuation of the 993, is something marque enthusiasts feel truly invested in. Heritage. History. Nostalgia. Each generation of Porschephile has ‘their’ generation of 911. And with it comes the stepping stone to exploring the Stuttgart brand’s back catalogue. It’s easy to get misty-eyed when waxing lyrical about Porsche. There really is no substitute. Kick back and enjoy the magazine.