Retro Rides Presents: 1989 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2

In 40 years of motoring journalism, a question I was often asked was what kind of car I owned. Perhaps because I usually drove luxury and performance marques, a lot of people took for granted that I’d own a BMW M, a Mercedes-Benz, or a Porsche. 

Twenty or 30 years ago, plenty of motoring journos didn’t bother to own a car. Just like today’s EV evangelists mostly don’t own EVs.

My experience has always been different. Along with owning various semi-sensible Mazdas, Hondas and Alfa Romeos for those rare spaces between press cars, for the past 35 years I’ve also had two consistent, classic threads.

For 23 years, until 2010, I owned a 1963 Fiat 500 Giardiniera. Yep, a bambino station wagon. And for the past 13 years, I’ve had a 1989 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 as my only car.

Stahl's 911 replaced his Fiat 500 Giardiniera wagon which he'd owned for 23 years

Growing up in a motorsport family, I had a broader education than my Holden and Ford-obsessed schoolmates. My formative daydreams were about Alfas, Alpines and Porsches.

Porsches were burned into my brain at an early age. In my family’s car club community, we knew people who were living the 911 story of driving to race meetings, winning races and driving home again. 

But another big influence was my dad’s Volvo 122S, which he bought in 1968. It wasn’t so much the Volvo itself, but the fact that it was his car for the next 46 years.

I was already five years into my motoring journalism career before I got to drive a Porsche, in 1987. By coincidence, the first 911 I ever drove was pretty much the same spec as my car: a 3.2-litre Carrera with the just-introduced Getrag G50 gearbox, which replaced the clunky Porsche 915 ’box. 

Although by 1987, the 911 was showing its age, it will still keep up alongside a modern hot hatch

In 1987, the 911 was an old car. In fact, in that story I wrote that the front-engine 944 Turbo left the old air-cooled, arse-engined battle-axe for dead by every rational measure.

Around that time, my mum was turning 50. She’d always promised herself a Porsche and she ended up buying, second-hand, the very same 944 Turbo I’d driven on the Porsche launch event a year or so earlier.

Fast-forward about 20 years, and I’ve driven dozens of road-going and racing Porsches, including the 1998 Le Mans-winning 911 GT1-98. I got an invitation to Austria for Porsche’s 60th anniversary, to be celebrated by driving a catalogue of classics from the Porsche Museum over the roads where the brand was born.

By then, I’m just four years away from my 50th birthday. Stepping up to six rear-mounted cylinders from my little Fiat’s two wasn’t looking at all imminent, but on that drive, I decided that a G50-gearbox 911 struck the perfect balance for classic car vibes, daily liveability and a faint hope of affordability.

I knew what I really wanted: a well-optioned, Australian-delivered, final-year 3.2 Carrera coupe. And I had time to find the right one.

I was 12 years old when the G-series, or impact bumper 911 was introduced in 1974. To me, this has always been the 911.

The G-series introduced galvanised body panels in 1975, so rust isn’t too great an issue. Engine capacities increased from 2.7 to 3.0 to 3.2 litres, and digital engine management came with the comeback Carrera in ’84. 

Strictly speaking, these are the last “911s”, as Porsche’s internal code changed to 964 with that new series in August 1989.

The direct link back to 1963 is both good and bad – the G-series has the original torsion-bar suspension front and rear, which imposed spring and geometry limitations that made the high-speed handling a bit gamey. 

The 911 Turbo or 930, the one they dubbed the Widowmaker, is the turbocharged version of this G-series chassis. Interestingly, the last atmo 3.2 is only about 20kW shy of the first 3.0-litre 911 Turbo’s output. 

Curiously, the last 3.2-litre atmo 911s were only around 20kW shy of the 'Widowmaker' 911 Turbo

An air-cooled 911’s flat six-cylinder engine just looks like an industrial vacuum cleaner. Beneath the metal ducting that’s behind the large cooling fan, the six separate, finned cylinders look like a litter of motorbike engines.

Today, this 911 is not really a fast car. The 3.2 makes around 170kW and weighs just over 1200 kilos. Nought to 100km/h takes about six seconds, which will still see off a Golf GTI. 

It’s not a boast, but I’ve driven plenty of new Ferraris, McLarens and, yep, Porsches that do 0-100 in sub-three seconds. None of those give me the same satisfaction, or interaction, as this old thing. 

It’s the pure enjoyment of learning its quirks and driving it well, even just down to the shops.

These air-cooled 911s have floor-hinged pedals, like a VW Beetle. That’s different. The G50 has a hydraulic clutch, but it’s still a bit heavy and deliberate, especially in stop-start traffic. There’s no power steering.

A period-correct Momo steering wheel and Porsche 917-inspired balsa gear knob are among the small changes Stahl has made to his

The driving position is bolt-upright and a bit cramped. With its thin A- and B-pillars, visibility is great – not like a modern car. 

And let’s not forget, the 911 is a real 2+2-seater. My two kids were happy to ride in the back of my car until they hit their teens. These days, I’ll just as often have the rear seatbacks down to take advantage of all that luggage space for extended road trips.

The cockpit ergonomics are… conceptual. This is a car designed in 1963, trying to accommodate all the stuff people wanted in 1989. 

The heating, ventilation and air-conditioning controls occupy three separate locations, on the dashboard and along the centre console. The 1987 model year thankfully introduced larger dashboard vents.

The exterior mirror adjuster is, sensibly, atop the door trim, but the left/right mirror selector is hidden under the instrument binnacle. As is the switch for the sunroof.

While the 3.2's peak torque output sits high up in the rev range, there are aftermarket tuning options which can help its low-end feel more responsive

You’d expect the 911’s decent-sized six-cylinder engine to make healthy torque, which it does. Surprisingly, however, the peak output of 284Nm is way up at 4800rpm, and it’s a bit flat in the mid-range.

With cars and motorcycles, I seem to default to maintaining originality. However, I’ve recently installed a new engine management chip from a guy in Los Angeles who’s revered in the 911 community. It has absolutely transformed my engine’s bottom-end responsiveness and smoothness around town.

I’ve also fitted a period-appropriate Momo steering wheel and Porsche 917-inspired balsa gear knob.

I grew up on Prost and Senna heel-and-toeing one-handed around Monaco – not kids in go-karts, who don’t have to take their hands off the wheel. It’s that driving aspect, the skill in operating the machinery, that really rewards me.

Air-cooled Porsches are famously reliable and the 3.2 has most of the bugs worked out, with Bosch engine management, hydraulic cam chain tensioners and better oil cooling. 

Stahl puts almost 10,000km on his high-mileage 911 each year, having confidence in its reliability, particularly after a complete engine rebuild

Even so, the valve guides wear out at around 150,000-200,000km, meaning a top-end rebuild at $12,000-15,000. I went for a full rebuild, a sucker for the mantra of “while you’re in there”.

There’s also a temperamental little relay attached to the Bosch DME brain-box under the passenger’s seat. It’s about $100 for a spare and it takes only 10 minutes and a 10-mil spanner to swap it over if it gives trouble.

How much do I trust Porsche reliability? About a month after buying mine, I drove it from Sydney to Adelaide, to meet the first owner and just shake that man’s hand. Since then, I’ve been averaging just under 10,000km each year.

As much as the driving, it’s the ownership experience – and the community. I love all the arcane detail about 911s; you just don’t stop learning, and teaching. 

These early 911s vapour-lock badly when you’re filling them with fuel, so you learn to twist the nozzle 180 degrees, upside-down.

It's easy to imagine a 911 feeling too exotic to work on yourself, but there's a mountain of information to answer just about any issue online given they remained unchanged for so long

When opening the engine lid, people sometimes forget to lift the rear wiper first, which will gouge the back of the roof panel. What you then need is a cable-tie on the wiper arm itself, to stop it from flinging upside-down – and gouging the middle of the roof.

Also at the rear, a full-width reflector without the familiar black Porsche lettering tells you that it’s a G50-gearbox car from 1987-89. 

I’d always imagined a 911 would be so exotic that I wouldn’t dare work on it myself. But these cars were basically unchanged for so long, and there’s so many decades of experience out there, you can pretty much find any part and answer any question via the internet or the community of specialist mechanics.

There’s another happy side to my Porsche story.

As that 50th birthday deadline loomed, I knew the only way I’d get to buy a 911 would be to sell the small investment flat I’d had for 10 years. It felt incredibly irresponsible, selling property to buy an old Porsche.

I paid $57,000 for my car in 2012, the price of a new BMW 320i at the time. Five years later, my 911 had tripled in value.

Although he clearly bought it for enjoyment, Stahl's 911 has proven to be a sound investment as well