Scroll down to the Porsche 996 section on any car forum, and for years you wouldn’t find much love. Catastrophic engine failures, water leaks, poor build quality and the underlying notion of ‘if it’s not air-cooled, it’s not a real 911’ prevailed. Admittedly, I’ve been guilty of displaying this attitude on occasion. Buy a sub-£10,000 996, and if anything goes wrong then your car’s a write-off, surely? £7,000 rebuilds and horror stories abound. Stay well clear; buy an Audi TT or M3, we often hear.
There are surprisingly little signs of wear in the usual areas you’d expect, and the Tiptronic gearbox shifts faultlessly