Porsches and the art of going ack basswards Let me state at the outset that I love Porsches. I love them so much that I have two 1/18th scale models (one of 996 S - the last of the aircooled 991s in the slightly tweaked S configuration, and one of the early Boxter before the Boxter S came out) which I keep close at hand to aid in my day-dreaming at work. I would have at least one of the full scale items were it not for the fact that my desires and aspirations far outstrip my financial wherewithall.

Putting a kid through a good liberal arts education and unleashing a talented and educated writer on the world, has cost me the equivalent of a new Boxter every year. Worth every penny spent in my opinion. I have for long admired Porsche's fluid lines and thrilled at the sound of their tappetty horizontally-opposed engines.

Much ink has been spilt on the "iconic" nature of Porsches, and how the rear-engine, air-cooled configuration of the traditional Porsche power plant is the only one purists really respect. In recent years Porsche has made glacial progress to drag its design into the 20th century - moving the engine forward of the rear axle as in the case of the Boxter and the Cayman, and finally succumbing to the advantages of water cooling as in the newer 997 iteration of the 911. But we have already witnessed another But let's call it for what it is: Porsche had for long been a company that had grown fat dumb and happy on the outrageous prices it could extract from its legion of slavish followers who would pay any price to have that shield from Zuffenhausen on their hoods.

Porsche did not innovate because they didn't have to. They served up essentially the same car for nearly 30 years from the early 70s to the early 2000s with minor changes - the headlights were sloping back, they sat up straight and then they went back to the reclining position. I exaggerate, but in essence that was the sum total of the changes that Porsche wrought on the 911 in the thirty years before it awakened Rip Van Winkle-like from its slumber.

Oh wait..I forgot the whale tail that came and went.

But the thing that assails my sensibilities about Porschephiles is the fact they will accept the tail-happy handling dynamic of the 911 (even a GT3, which is as close as you can get to a full-on race car licensed for the road) as an endearing idiosyncracy in a $100,000 car. It is well documented that a vast proportion of 911s that crash, leave the road facing whence they came - in other words they exit stage backwards. This kind of behavior from a Subaru WRX STi costing amost exactly a third of the 911's price would be excusable, but what you get from that car is solid straight line traction with the 300HP from its horizontally opposed engine being fed to all of its four wheels.

The Subaru even edged out the GT3 in the 2004 Car and Driver Best Car spot. So for my money, would I buy three Subaru WRX STis or the one 911? I can drive only one car at a time, and since I don't wear Birkenstocks with socks as a rule, it'll have to be the Porsche for me.

Oh, and did Steve McQueen drive a Subaru in LeMans? Not so much.