Recently, I’ve featured a few Targas, mostly 3.2 Carreras, and remarked about the change in Targa design that Porsche instituted for the 993. The Targa design of the 993 was not a short lived experiment as both the 996 and 997 followed suit, but now that Porsche has returned to the original design with their most recent release as part of the 991 lineup the redesigned Targa is left as somewhat of an aberration. Introduced in 1996, the new Targa did away with the roll hoop and removeable top, replaced with a fully-glassed canopy with a sliding panel to provide a degree of open-air motoring. Viewed from the side, the removal of the roll hoop meant the new design looked much more akin to the 993 Coupe than previous iterations, which even I, as a fan of the classic Targa design, admit look much more dated than the coupes. The car featured here comes from the first year of the new Targa production: an Iris Blue Metallic 1996 Porsche 911 Targa, located in Brooklyn, with 48,212 miles on it.
