Porsche 911 2007 review

Thanks to the fact that a sparkling, new car is delivered and then taken away and detailed every week, there’s not much need for damaging their tender, type-tapping fingers on cleaning products.

This is how I first knew that Porsche’s 911 really was something special, because many years ago my boss, slightly salivating, told me that he’d washed his Porsche press car, not once, but four times - in a week.

Sadly, he wouldn’t let me drive it – in fact he laughed heartily at the very idea – but he did take me for a fang in it, and a fascination was born.

One definition of a work of art would be that you stare at it repeatedly, even though you already know exactly what it looks like.

It’s like that with the 911. During my most recent motoring affair with one, I found myself making excuses to go outside and gaze at it. I even took up smoking for the week to help with this.

One night I found myself on the balcony, lost in reverie as I looked down on its roof.

And it’s the roof, in particular, that was special about this 911 – because it was the Targa 4 model.

Porsche has more variants of its 911 than Jacques Villeneuve’s hairdresser has had bad ideas and the Targa has been part of the line-up for 40 years.

The traditional Targa top had removable roof sections and was about as practical as a brown-paper umbrella if it rained.

The modern version has a seemingly smarter idea, with the entire roof made of glass.

And yes, you could just call it a massive sunroof, but Targa is a far sexier word, obviously.

Hold down the button between the rear seats and the whopping great glass panel slides back so that it sits flush with the rear window.

This takes just six seconds and leaves you with a gaping hole through which you can sunburn your bonce (there’s also a perforated sunscreen that can be opened and closed separately).

While this all sounds lovely, the problem is that when you then look in the rear-view mirror you are looking at the traffic behind you through two thickish bits of glass, with the result being a world view that’s fuzzier than a hungover man’s tongue.

I don’t want to harp on about it, but seriously, it’s so, so rare for Porsche to stuff up anything that I was taken aback.

Obviously, you can use your side mirrors, but this is hardly the perfect solution and perfection is what you expect when you’ve paid $233,600 (or $259,900 for the S version) for a car.

Fortunately, just about everything else about driving it does bring the P-word to your lips.

The Targa version of the 911 is based on the Carrera 4, which means it gets a stunning all-wheel-drive system, mated to the 239kW 3.6-litre flat six engine (or the 261kW 3.8-litre in the S).

There is something that happens to your face when you corner quickly in this car, and I watched it happen to a passenger on a run up the Old Pacific Hwy.

First, your jaw drops open, then you shake your head, causing your cheeks to wobble in the breeze, and finally you grin, irrepressibly, like a leering mad man.

Time and time again we were both stunned into a silence broken only by the occasional snort of disbelief as the 911 hung on and hung on and then belted out of corners like an incendiary device.

Its all-wheel grip is so prodigious that it makes the word prodigious seem entirely inadequate.

And all the time the car is talking to you through its wondrously supple yet muscular steering.

Going around the bend just shouldn’t be this much fun.

By the by, it’s also quite quick – with a 0 to 100km/h time of 5.8 seconds, but straight-line speed is merely a sideshow to the cornering experience.

All the while, that growling, howling engine spits its noise at you through the open Targa roof.

After a while I must admit I really didn’t care whether I could see out the rear-view mirror.

The car’s only other failing was the Tiptronic gearbox, a $5,500 option that I seriously can’t believe anyone ever pays for (but they do, about 50 per cent of Porsche buyers have lazy left legs, apparently).

Porsche makes one of the world’s best six-speed manual gearboxes, but its five-speed semi-automatic effort is more serviceable than stunning.

Left in auto mode around town it is far too quick to grab top gear, although its 370Nm of torque means it can get away with it.

Changing gears using the buttons on the steering wheel is the only way to go, but in terms of tactile joy it’s like wearing nylon pants compared to denim.

Frankly, though, I would wear a nylon sack, forever, if it meant I could have kept this car.

Combining the joys of open-top motoring with the rigidity and practicality of a coupe is what the Targa model is all about, but frankly it’s the 911 DNA that makes it so deeply desirable.

I could almost wash it. Almost.