If so, how does it compare to the R? I have a chance to purchase a 1996 c2 Carrera w/ only 8500 miles on it and have been looking for a nice example for the last few months to possibly replace the R. I have serious doubts of how good of a car this will be in comparison to my R. From what I've read, it should be a step up in performance and handling.

Any comments or recommendations are welcomed as to how a 993 compares to a 98 R.

I know in the end it will boil down to what I want in a car, but I wanted to hear from my fellow R owners what they would do if they were in my position. Keep price differentials out of the equation.

Thanks guys.... appreciate the help.

 

sad to hear you might let her go bud if its any consolation, i've always had a thing for a '79 930 turbo.

 

Given the chance? I'd probably would in a New York minute.

This is even without a direct comparison since I haven't had a chance to enjoy Porsche goodness yet.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by -Lucky- &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">sad to hear you might let her go bud if its any consolation, i've always had a thing for a '79 930 turbo.
</TD></TR></TABLE>


sigh... yeah tell me about it, old flames die hard.....

 

kelly,

as much as i hate to say this, the 993 is a world apart from our cars. :tears: if you have the "kala", then by all means get the porsche. i've driven a '96 993 for about 5 mins. and it was bliss. i'm sure you know about their tendency to oversteer without much warning; although, the 993 was designed with intent to "alleviate" this tendency versus previous models. it is much more powerful, handles better, is built rock solid, has better resale, and (going out on a limb here) may have near equal insurance premiums.

the 993 is my "somewhat affordable" dream car. if i had the funds, i wouldn't have to think twice about it.

aloha bruddah,
kepani-whose pops used to have one...

 

one thing to note about the "older" 911's (993 and older) is that the pedals (clutch, brake, and throttle) hinge from the floorboard. it kinda makes it difficult to heel toe as compared with your "standard" config; i.e. pedals hinged from above. just a note to ponder.

 

kepani,

thanks, brah... yeah I'm familiar with the handling quirks of the 911 chassis. I've always wanted one and the chance is now. Thanks for your words of encouragement... already check on insurance.. will be $625 a year for full coverage.. 50 more than I'm paying for the R.

can't lose with all the pluses going for it right now, which is why I thought I'd like to bounce this around in the R forum to get some perspective on my planned purchase.... see if someone can come up with some negatives I may be overlooking in comparison to the R.

from sleepy kauai....

 

The only carrera's I've experienced was the base NA RWD 97. And the other is my neighbors 98 Porsche AWD TT.

They are in another world completely than the R. The stability is stunning. And the sound of the rear engine humming it's way into the cabin is music.

The cars just have a totally different feel. If you are looking for something to thrash on a track, then keep the R. The parts will be cheaper.

But the 993 would make a very nice car to drive around town and the occasional track day. No more worries about theft.

 

For the same money as the 993, you could get a nice used NSX that will be better in most respects...

 

maybe a c4 corvette?

 

dude, why are you even thinking twice?

993 =

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Tweakmeister &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">dude, why are you even thinking twice?

993 = </TD></TR></TABLE>

Haha I have to agree, to me the 993 is the pinnacle of 911 goodness

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nsxtasy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">For the same money as the 993, you could get a nice used NSX that will be better in most respects...
</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

as nice as the nsx is, I test drove one and found out I didn't like the car.

I love my R for it's Acura quality, but the nsx just seemed slow and not as connected as my R. I wanted to like the nsx, as that was my first inclination to upgrade from the R, but for me it wasn't the answer I was looking for.

thanks for the suggestions, though... keep em coming.


and thanks to those for their words of encouragement.

 

i had one for a few days when out west last year, but it was a 2001 I believe.

I loved it. The pedals are a bit odd and it does have some quirky understeer that I learned about quickly. Great car. If a used NSX is not your style... do it! I don't think you'll hear much bad about it.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by kkim &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">as nice as the nsx is, I test drove one and found out I didn't like the car.

I love my R for it's Acura quality, but the nsx just seemed slow and not as connected as my R. I wanted to like the nsx, as that was my first inclination to upgrade from the R, but for me it wasn't the answer I was looking for.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Funny, I find it to be just the opposite. I own both cars, and I drive both of them on the track as well as the street. But when it comes to speed/acceleration, cornering/handling/connectedness, braking, etc, there is just no comparison. The ITR is a great car, but the NSX is even greater (and greater than the 993 as well - especially in that feeling of being "connected" to the road, in which the car goes exactly where you want it to - the 993 just feels sloppy compared to a well-maintained NSX). Don't get me wrong; I love my ITR, and I love my NSX. Each does different things well. But the things that you mention are the ones that the NSX does better than the ITR (or the 993, for that matter).

Perhaps the NSX you drove had something wrong with it. (I can imagine you might have that reaction if, for example, you drove one with an automatic transmission, or if it had a lot of miles and still had the original shocks, etc.)

 

In 1998, I drove a 993 back-to-back with my NSX, and wrote up my impressions. Here is what I wrote at that time:

Well, today, for the first time in my life, I drove a late-model (but not 996 and not turbo) Porsche 911. I had lunch with a friend, and we switched cars for the drive from the office to lunch. In the past, I had ridden in Porsches numerous times on the track, but always as a passenger.

What a HUGE difference in driving feel! It just felt so very different. I had figured that the driving experience wouldn't be all that different from one high-performance car to another, but I was mistaken.

Impressions:

Who the heck designed these pedals? Were they nuts? Yes, I had heard about the hinges on the bottom of the P-car pedals, but that's not what was so weird. First of all, the amount of travel of the clutch pedal from the bottom to the top was enormous, even though the effective range was just as narrow as the NSX. Who needs all that pedal travel? It just makes it difficult to find the effective range, that's all. Secondly, the gas pedal seems like it's about 20 inches further away from you than the clutch and brake pedals. But then that clutch pedal has so much travel, it seems as though it travels that same 20 inches. Totally incomprehensible.

The dash. Not bad. The NSX dash has a depth of maybe 8-9 inches from the steering wheel to the gauges. In the 911, they're almost in the same plane. It was actually rather appealing that way, because your eyes don't have to find the right focal length from the wheel. Nice.

The gearshift. Also pretty good. The throws are somewhat longer than the NSX (bad) but worked very smoothly (good) and was actually easier than the NSX to put into the proper gear. What I mean is that, there are times in the NSX when I'm not paying attention and sometimes try to go to third and instead go to fifth or vice versa. That would be more difficult with the 911 because there's a much more positive feel in the left-to-right positioning of the shift lever. I might have given Porsche the advantage in this area, but they lost it when they designed reverse gear. Having reverse in the upper left position was strange to begin with, and it was extremely difficult to engage reverse, requiring a lot of pressure and was quite notchy.

The HVAC controls. Ancient hieroglyphics. They must have hired Mel Brooks playing the 2000 year old man to tell them how to label them with those cave man markings. Let's see, there's a big snowflake, that must be the A/C. But why are there TWO different buttons with snowflakes? Why two slider controls? And this **** must be the fan, but when I turn it, nothing happens. (I found out later that there's a brief time lag before adjusting it has any effect.) It seems to me that HVAC controls should be very, very simple. There really are only a few things you can adjust - temperature, where the air comes from, where the air goes to, whether it's chilled, and how fast the fan blows. Not rocket science. ANY car today ought to have simple, easy-to-understand HVAC controls - and most of them do, even your everyday family sedan. But not the 911.

The stereo is an Alpine. I don't know if it came with the car or was aftermarket, but one look at the tiny size of the buttons convinced me not to even try.

Glove box - small but worked okay. The arm rest in the door flipped up (I forget why) and just struck me as junky.

Okay, okay - we get cars like this to DRIVE. So how was driving it? Unfortunately, the route we took had almost no turns, so I can't comment on sheer cornering ability. But the steering is nowhere near as responsive as on the NSX. Like the A/C, there seemed to be a lag. Turn the wheel, wait a half second, and yes, then the car turns nicely. Whereas the NSX seems to turn like magic, as soon as the thought crosses your mind, before you even turn the wheel.

The brakes were very nice - not the killer brakes I had heard about, but smooth and effective. Although lately my NSX brakes have also felt quite good, and don't seem to me to be the weak point some other folks feel they are. But that could be because I've been using aftermarket pads, rotors, and fluid on my NSX. So that may be an unfair comparison.

The power just didn't overwhelm me, but the horsepower curve seemed much flatter than in the NSX. With the NSX, if you keep the revs in the 2000-3000 range around town, there seems to be very little power. But (as we all know) get the revs up over 5000, and it turns into a screamer. Whereas the 911 seemed to have more power than the NSX at the pussycat end of the rev band, but I never really felt it take off the way the NSX does, even when I had it floored at different points in the rev band.

So those are my impressions. To sum up - the 911 is supposed to be a car that competes with the NSX. Before I drove one, my assumption had been that overall I would find it to be an equivalent vehicle - better in some areas, worse in others. But as it turns out, I was quite disappointed. In my personal opinion, I felt that it was just not a very impressive car, with capabilities that don't even come close to the NSX, and features that are are not only user-UNfriendly, but bizarre and senseless.

 

nope, 92 nsx, 5 speed w/ 15k miles on it. like brand new and showroom perfect. just not my cup of tea... plus my R is far from stock with as many bolt ons as you can get w/o doing internal engine mods.

just decided the nsx was not for me... can you accept that?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by kkim &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">nope, 92 nsx, 5 speed w/ 15k miles on it. like brand new and showroom perfect. just not my cup of tea... plus my R is far from stock with as many bolt ons as you can get w/o doing internal engine mods.

just decided the nsx was not for me... can you accept that?</TD></TR></TABLE>

I think he's just trying to offer some insight. I would appreciate real world reviews like that if I was researching cars.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by kkim &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">just decided the nsx was not for me... can you accept that?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Sure, no problem. But I've driven all three cars, and I thought it might help you (or others) to hear what I thought about the cars and their characteristics. I happen to disagree with your opinion. Can you accept that?

Hope you find something you like. Good luck.

 

and I appreciate your contribution to this thread. But as you can see, and as I've already explained, I tried the nsx and I didn't care for it.

What I was looking for was a relative comparison between a type R and 993. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion and you've expressed it.... thank you.

I 'm glad that you're happy with your nsx... I hope I will be as happy with my decision as yours... we'll see.

 

Getting back to your original question:

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by kkim &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Any comments or recommendations are welcomed as to how a 993 compares to a 98 R.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Based on having driven both, I would compare them as follows:

Acceleration: 993
Braking: 993
Handling: ITR
Looks: Subjective
Ergonomics: ITR
Reliability: ITR
Depreciation/Resale: ITR

Try test-driving the 993. If you like it, get it.

 

thank you

 

Don't overlook cost of ownership (cost of parts, etc.) with the Porsche

Back in the day, when I was a REAL "playa", I came pretty darn close to buying a low mileage 1986 (930 series) 911 Turbo, the one with the 4-SPEED tranny and one huge freakin KKK turbo...gawd that thing was a beast. I ended up getting an E30 M3 instead.

I'm pretty sure the 993 is a pussycat in comparision.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by kengs &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Back in the day, when I was a REAL "playa", I came pretty darn close to buying a low mileage 1986 (930 series) 911 Turbo, the one with the 4-SPEED tranny and one huge freakin KKK turbo...gawd that thing was a beast. I ended up getting an E30 M3 instead.</TD></TR></TABLE>

If you were a "REAL playa" wouldn't you have gotten the 911?

j/k

Kelly, I was looking at 993 911's among other cars, but I could not find a decent example locally. I ended up with an E36 M3.

What color combo is the 911?