The peculiarity of the Soft-window Targa provides us a window into the way innovative designs and attempts to adapt can end up as short diversions that ultimately fail. Very few of these cars were ever made and fewer still exist today. Out of some concern for the continued viability of the convertible because of increasingly stringent safety regulations, Porsche engineered some Targa versions of the 911 and 912 with an attached roll-hoop and folding rear window, hence “soft-window”. With its combination of folding rear window and removable top these cars provided multiple ways to enjoy one’s open-top drive, yet it was always going to be more fussy to deal with than either a hard-window Targa or a Cabriolet. After a few years of production, the Targa was reverted exclusively to the hard-window version and the Soft-window exists as sort of an interesting anomaly. Ultimately, it seems these soft-windows showcase some of the difficulty the Targa has enjoyed more generally. Still, they were an interesting attempt at a solution to potential problems, even if those problems never materialized to the degree Porsche expected. The example we have here is a 1968 Porsche 912 Soft-window Targa, located in California, with 109,125 miles on it.
