A water-cooled Porsche 911 was once unimaginable, but the automaker has been making them for 25 years now.
Porsche began introducing water-cooled road cars in the 1980s in the form of the 924, 944, and 928. But the automaker’s flagship, the 911, continued with water-cooling, which was considered an important part of its identity. After all, Porsche had been building air-cooled, rear-engined sports cars from the start, so it was hard to break with tradition.
Porsche 911 (996 generation)
The end of the air-cooled Porsche finally came in 1997, when the 996 generation 911 was introduced at that year’s Frankfurt Motor Show. The flat-six engine was in the usual place, but this time air-cooled.
“We experimented with the engine because the air-cooled two-valve concepts were technologically down the road in terms of emissions and performance,” August Achleitner, then head of technical product planning, vehicle concepts and packaging at Porsche, said in a statement. “And various air-cooled four-valve boxers didn’t work because of various hotspots that we couldn’t get a grip on.”
Porsche 911 (996 generation)
The move was a long time coming — Porsche experimented with a 911 V-8 in 1989, Achleitner said — but the 996 offers the perfect opportunity to make it happen. This was the most thorough redesign of the 911 to date, bringing an unorthodox design that eliminated the classic round headlights (they came back for the 997 911) and parts shared with the first generation Porsche Boxster. So it was a good time to switch to water cooling.
Predictably, some Porsche enthusiasts were horrified and claimed they would never touch a water-cooled 911. However, the car was a success, selling 175,000 copies during its run. The parts-sharing concept also allowed Porsche to develop and produce the Boxster on a relatively limited budget. No longer held captive by tradition, Porsche then launched the Cayenne that secured its financial future. None of this would have happened without the 996 911, so it was indeed, pardon the pun, a turning point for Porsche.
