The millionth 911 isn't a particularly interesting car.

Strip away the Irish Green paint, the various Porsche Exclusive visual touches, and the badge indicating this car's order in the 911 lineage, and you're left with a Carrera 2S with Porsche's optional Powerkit. So, it has 30 more horsepower.

It isn't as raucous as the new GT3, or as brain-scramblingly fast as a Turbo S, but it's a good example of what a brand new, normal 911 drives like in 2017.

Barry Hayden/Porsche

Porsche

Our encounter with 911 #1000000 was all too brief. It came at the end of a long two-day road trip in Scotland where Porsche invited us to drive a handful of 911s new and old to celebrate the millionth. The sun was out as I hopped behind the wheel, but soon, the weather turned typically British, with heavy rains making the winding B-roads around Scotland's Knockhill Circuit incredibly slippery.

The first thing that strikes you about the newest generation of turbocharged 911 Carreras is just how effortlessly fast they are–even in tricky conditions. The millionth is no exception. You can wring out its 3.0-liter twin-turbo flat-six, but it's even easier to take advantage of its huge midrange punch to make brisk progress.

Like a lot of modern high-performance cars, the millionth 911's handling limits are so high that you're not going to be pushing it into under- or oversteer unless you're fixing to lose your license. Still, you can enjoy its nicely-weighted electric power steering and tightly controlled chassis–even at legal speeds.

Porsche

Despite the retro throwback details, the millionth 911 is a thoroughly modern car. It's got all sorts of electronic systems to help you keep the shiny side up, and all the creature comforts you'd expect in a modern luxury car. The fact that it had an honest-to-god manual transmission felt like a strange (if welcome) anachronism.



You'd think, then, that driving the millionth 911 back-to-back with an earlier example would feel totally bizarre. That the only thing connecting the two would be a name, a look, and a flat-six swinging behind the rear axle. Strangely enough, that's not the case.

Dean Smith/Porsche

The earlier example in question was a 1967 911 Targa, a short wheelbase car equipped with a 2.0-liter flat-six making around 140 horsepower and weighing just one ton. Of course, this little air-cooled car pales in comparison to the 450-hp millionth in terms of outright performance, but the lineage between them is strikingly obvious.

I realized this in a wide left-hand bend with a prominent mid-corner bump. As soon as you hit it in the 1967 Targa, the steering wheel jerks in your hand, but the chassis quickly takes a set, then you're off to the next corner.

It's more-or-less the same story with the millionth 911 in that same corner. The steering wheel doesn't shake as violently in the newer car, and its body motions are more controlled, but you feel the car take a set in almost the exact same way.

Dean Smith/Porsche

Dean Smith/Porsche

Like the millionth 911, the Targa is surprisingly comfortable too. In fact, the 1967 911 is more comfortable than its modern counterpart. The suspension is very softly sprung, and the seats are sprung too. This is a car that you could happily drive hundreds of miles in a day without feeling tired. It's a proper grand tourer as much as it is a sports car.

It's quick too. On these sorts of British b-roads, it could easily keep up with a new Mazda Miata, which is damn impressive for a car that's half a century old.

Now don't get me wrong, this felt like an old car, but not necessarily a 50-year old car. The steering was slow, but incredibly talkative through its thin, Bakelite wheel. The close-ratio gearbox had surprisingly forgiving syncromesh, but it demanded you be careful and deliberate with each shift. In its day, this transmission was hailed a revelation and I can absolutely see why.

As with all old 911s, you want to get all your braking done well before you turn into a corner, but it didn't feel like the car was going to snap oversteer into a tree, like its reputation might suggest.

Dean Smith/Porsche

Driving the 1967 911 is leagues more involving than the millionth 911, but I wouldn't say it's that much more difficult. And really, these cars, relative to the time they were built, offer the same basic things–sports car performance, intuitive handling, and everyday usability.

The biggest changes over 1 million 911s are felt in the more extreme models like the Turbo and the GT3, which feel more far removed from cars like the 1967. The Turbo pushes the 911 further into really-fast-grand-tourer territory, while the GT3 goes the opposite direction, honing the 911's sports-car qualities to sublime perfection.

Barry Hayden/Porsche

But as normal, 911s go, the millionth model isn't all that different from its predecessors. Now, try explaining that to those who cry "they don't build 'em like they used to."

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