Someday—though that someday is definitely not today—I hope to have a 964.
As I’ve written many times before, I love early 90’s cars like the last ‘true’ air-cooled classic 911.
The idea of having a car(s) from the era of my childhood is appealing not just because of the visual aspects, though that is a big part of it.
More than that, I long for the days when cars were simpler.
But at some point, a car can be too simple.
Imagine owning car manufactured in the early 90’s, or even earlier. While there is no shortage of single and double DIN head units available for retrofitting your old car, there is also no shortage of units that look absolutely terrible. Flashing and glowing neon blue lights that blind even in direct sunlight.
Why would you want to adorn your old car with such gaudy visual diarrhea?
The answer is that you wouldn’t.
And on a less esthetic level, our modern-day reliance on technical amenities like BTLE and handsfree could—if you’re that sort of person—make driving less enjoyable in their absence.[1]
Porsche, ever the company to embrace its heritage, is offering a really classy-looking audio / navigation combo head unit for classic[2] 911’s.[3]
Patrick George for Jalopnik has the scoop:
It’s more than just a nav system, too. It also has Bluetooth phone integration for calling and streaming audio, which is really nice, and an SD card for your music, and it’s also a radio. The amp can even be connected to loud speakers, if you ever have a use for that.
Big surprise:
Don’t expect it to come cheap, though. In German the head unit costs €1,184, which is about $1,340 in our currency; pricing for the U.S. hasn’t been announced yet, so maybe it will be less expensive over here.
And here’s his take on it, more or less similar to my own:
I don’t know how I feel about this thing. On one hand, I’m all about keeping a classic car classic, and that nav system doesn’t seem especially easy to use or see. On the other hand, it’s a tasteful and discreet option, and it lets you play your own music in your vintage 911, which is great to have.
Finally:
It’s better than some nasty-looking unit from Best Buy, right?
Yes. Yes it is Patrick.
Obviously, the very lack of such amenities can be part of the allure of older automobiles. Do you think Jay Leno sighs at the lack of CarPlay when he goes for a drive in his Outlaw? Yeah, I don’t either. ↩
I use the term “classic” here quite technically, because technically, the classic era ended in 1995 with the 993. ↩
993 and below it seems, though the previous offerings by Porsche only worked for the truly classic-classic 911’s, the pre-SC models ↩