If history was a car, it would be the Porsche 911. Over 50 years and only thing that has remained the same apart from it’s shape is the fact that it has been the benchmark for unfiltered driving pleasure since inception. Today the 911 is available in about 20 variants and there’s no ways that you can’t find yourself a 911 that won’t fit your proverbial T. If you want simple driving pleasure, you have the GT3 Touring. The GT2 RS and GT3 RS will do your track day duties. The GT3 if you want to do a track day en route office. You have the Carrera T if you want the simple driving pleasure but cannot afford a GT3 Touring. I can go on about this but you get the drift.

With the 991 generation, Porsche reimagined the targa. The targa is one of Porsche’s oldest 911 models. Back in 1967, Porsche realised that their 911s were doing good business so they did the most obvious thing to expand their model line up - chop the roof off. Hence the 911 Cabriolet was born but there was a small issue. The Cabriolet couldn’t be sold in the US market because of USA’s stringent homologation laws. All Cabriolets had to have roll bars to be legal on the US roads and for this Porsche came up with the most ingenious solution ever - partially chop the roof. So basically what Porsche did was instead of chopping the roof all the way down to the rear deck, they cut away only the top part of the roof and left the rear glass intact and called the car the Porsche 911 targa. This helped Porsche homologate the car in the US market which was one of their largest market. While at it, little did Porsche realise that they’d created themselves a new body style which would go on to be a phenomenon. However, over the years, Porsche lost this body style and most of the recent generation 911 targas since the 993 were sold with a simple glass roof.
 

One fine day, some boffin at Porsche thought that it is a brilliant idea bring back the iconic targa shape with the 991 generation and hence this car that you are seeing pictures of came to be. Porsche kept the silhouette of a 911 intact and put a fabric folding roof between the windshield and the rear glass. They even went on to recreate the iconic targa roll bar finished in silver on the 911. Although the 991 targa didn’t create as many ripples as it was expected to on the driving department as many complained that it felt too heavy owing to the extra weight added by the rear glass bubble roof and hence felt a less like a what a 911 must be, I think you have Prost or Senna to be able to tell the difference. Personally, I would take the targa anyday over a Cabriolet for the looks alone! And this example here finished in Sapphire Blue Metallic with turbo style wheels is a strong spec.
 

The 911 targa is pretty rare a car in India. With a couple of G Body examples in existence, one in red and other in silver ( which once belonged and was raced by Vijay Mallya, currently under restoration) along with a few 997s and one 996, it is a no surprise that the 991 is equally rare too. With about 4 cars in the country, this is the only Sapphire Blue example from Surat, Gujarat, owned and driven by a passionate gentleman, 911s are cars that you’d buy only if you knew your cars well. The targa is a truly special car with some great amount of history to boot, our man Harshil Majmudar has done full justice to the car with his amazing camera skills, as usual!