My name is Andrew, and I’m a serial car buyer. With that said, welcome to my world of cars! It might sound strange and possibly a little excessive, but I’m one of those people who simply have the need to change their cars very often.

It started for me more than a few years ago, when I was, ooh, about 10 years old. I’d frequently change the imaginary car that I was “driving” at the time, a process which was just fine when the car was in my head but becomes rather more of a problem when you continue to do this with the real thing! 

As soon as I started driving I could feel this urge to try as many new cars as possible, and I simply couldn’t keep my first car, a Citroën Saxo (hey, it was the late 90s! I’m sure they were really cool at the time…), for more than a year or so. I “upgraded” to a better Saxo. And then another. Then, one day I saw sense and bought a proper car.

More recently, I’ve been lucky enough to experience some of the finest sports saloons currently in production. However, it was only a few years ago that I tended to shy away from traditional premium brands, preferring to stick with left-field Alfa’, convincing myself that they were just as good as any German car.

BMWs in particular were common, in my opinion; they couldn’t possibly drive as well as the magazines said, and everyone who bought one must just be wrong. Then in 2007, I drove my first BMW and frankly, I never looked back!

It was the then-new 335i which I found such a revelation against the Alfa 147GTA that I owned at the time. It felt premium, it was so well engineered and it swiftly found its way onto my drive. For around 10 months. Just a few months later the new M3 was launched, but amazingly it didn’t blow my socks off in comparison to the 335i. Yet there was something about the M3 that ensured it replaced the 335i before that car had reached its first birthday. I’m sure the sound, the feel and the looks had something to do with it!

As an all-round package the BMW was unbeatable…but as a car to love, or to have even a slight emotional attachment to, it was nowhere.

That wasn’t the end of my time with BMWs, either. Before the year was up in the M3, an M6 happened to turn up on my drive. Now that one really didn’t last long, but I find myself in a strange place with that car. It was by far the most thoroughly engineered device I had ever driven, it was an incredible ground coverer and the build quality was exquisite. As an all-round package it was nigh-on unbeatable…but as a car to love, or to have even a slight emotional attachment, it was nowhere. I never really liked it. I thought it was ugly, and it was let down by a gearbox that, whilst not as bad as most people say it is, did grate after just a few months. Five months later to be precise, when my first Mercedes replaced it!

The C63 AMG…now that is a car that punches well above its weight in performance, quality and sheer sense of occasion. I had two of them, the second one simply because they launched a faster, better one and I got nearly all my money back on the first (they also hold their money remarkably well)!

It wasn’t perfect and I spent the most of last summer improving the rather soft handling with some fancy coilovers and even managed to blag one of AMG’s Nürburgring-based development drivers to help set it up for me. However, there was one aspect of the car that bothered me. It was a trait that I noticed - and tried to ignore - in my first C63, and was also present in my second one, that took away a little bit of the car’s appeal.

The steering column had a habit of shimmying, giving a sensation as if one of the wheels or the steering column was loose. This was especially evident on the rutted roads in the UK, and it only got worse as I tried to tune the coilovers to firmer damper settings. It was one of those “they’re all like that” characteristics, and was even acknowledged as such by AMG’s development driver.

Ultimately, although I ended up with a car that was probably as good as I could get it, I never got that perfect set-up that I was looking for, and after 15 months of C63 ownership I was on the hunt again.

Which leads me to where I found myself a few weeks ago, and that’s in a similar situation to when I owned my Alfa and refused to try the kind of cars being recommended to me. Recently, as I’ve got to know more people who acknowledge my car-buying habits, I’ve lost count on the amount of times someone would say to me, “You should get a 911 Turbo”. Pah, I thought, I don’t like the looks or the bland interior, and it can’t drive that well.

So, once I’d committed to selling the C63, I went and tried a variety of offerings from other manufacturers and ignored the Porsche. I tried the Maserati GranTurismo 4.7 S (gorgeous, top sound and great build, but it wasn’t quick and had the worst seats I’ve experienced in a modern premium car), the Aston Martin V8 Vantage 4.7 (another gorgeous car but again, not that quick and this one wasn’t even that well made), the Nissan GT-R (after driving it on real roads; you know, the ones with bumps - no, just no) and my favourite of the lot, a new Mercedes E63 AMG.

That last car was very different to the others, but I’ve got a thing for AMGs and it was so good that I actually placed a deposit on one. Ultimately, my head got the better of my heart and I didn’t buy it. Nice though it was, nearly £90k on an E-Class was just madness.

In desperation, I woke up one Saturday morning and decided to drive to my local Porsche dealer to see what all the fuss was about with those pesky 911s. And very quickly, I began to see the error of my ways. After a pleasant few hours of trying a couple of different variations (the sales experience offered by the dealer was superb) I really did understand the appeal. I still wasn’t convinced on the design but as a car to drive…WOW!

The C63 was hardly a softie, but after test-driving the Porsche it did feel a bit loose and floaty. With that in mind, barely a week later I found myself collecting my first Porsche, a Gen. 2 997 Turbo.

With the area covered in snow, it wasn't the best day to pick up a 500bhp sports car, but that wasn't going to take any enjoyment away. On collecting the car I was treated to probably the best handover I've ever experienced: not too much information, but just enough to show they care and value my custom. Unlike many other manufacturers, the whole buying experience from the Porsche dealer was a pleasure.

My initial impressions were of exceptional engineering, real “feel” and of course, performance.

The way the 911 appears to be engineered, the materials used and the structural stiffness of the car are outstanding; easily the most impressive I've experienced to date. In the cabin, every switch has a lovely damped, positive feel, and when driving, the car goes down the road without suffering any form of body flex. It has a really solid, hewn-from-stone feel that makes it appear indestructible. Is this what you pay for in a 911?

Perhaps, but there are other fantastic examples of how well engineered it is. Take the gearchange, for example. The 911 Turbo has huge power and torque, but it still has a smooth, light clutch and one of the slickest gearchanges I’ve ever experienced – a well-oiled and defined movement accompanies every throw!

Inside, it has Porsche's latest touchscreen PCM system for the nav and audio. This was one of the reasons I really wanted a Gen. 2 model; the older system in the Gen. 1 cars is some way behind. The dynamic sports seats are very supportive and have fully adjustable side bolsters - not just on the backrest but the deep bolsters by your legs too! It had a lot to live up to against the C63's excellent seats, and whilst they’re not as aggressively bolstered around the back, bigger bolsters for your legs counter this. They do have a more solid structure, more like a racing seat, but they've been very comfortable and feel like they'll last forever.

Finally on the inside, I absolutely love the instrument panel. With its five separate binnacles, there’s a lot of information to take in, but there’s just something about having all those gauges showing things like oil pressure, turbo boost, oil temp and so on that impresses me. The speedo is a bit difficult to read, though; it's a secondary gauge to the rev counter and goes all the way to 225mph in just half a dial, so it’s a good job you get a permanent digital readout!

Add another 10% throttle and it's as if you've just added a rocket to a jet engine. The acceleration is insane.

So, what about driving, then? It’s a bit like this…you give it, say, 75% throttle and think, “this is insanely quick”. Then you add another 10% throttle and it's as if you've just added a rocket to a jet engine. The acceleration is insane and no matter how fast I thought the C63 was, the Turbo is in a different league. I love the fact that even the final centimeter of throttle travel gives very defined and noticeable additional acceleration. In most other cars I’ve experienced, the final 20-30% of throttle seemed to give very little extra benefit.

The other noticeable part of the performance is the torque. I'm seriously not exaggerating when I say that in 6th gear at 60mph, it'll pull to speeds well in excess of what is legal with the same ferociousness as the C63 did in 3rd.

Handling-wise, the best way I can describe the Porsche compared to anything else I've owned, BMW M3 included (which was the best-handling I've had to date), is that this drives like a proper sports car. It's stiff and very direct - you turn the wheel, which is brimming with feel (something I don’t think I’d really experienced before) and the car just darts round a corner very much like a big go-kart. In fact, that's probably the best way to describe the Turbo – it’s like a big, heavy go-kart with lighter steering! God knows what a Gen. 2 GT3 RS is like if the Turbo is supposedly the luxury-limo of the 911 range!

You can feel the differentials adjusting the power delivery mid-corner very obviously. It builds with a bit of understeer to start with, which can be a little unsettling – indeed, initially it made me want to lift off, but when I got used to driving through this, I found the power transferred rearward again and the car pushed round the corner quite neutrally.

Ride quality is pretty good. It actually rides things like catseyes and expansion joints better than most normal cars, but in most circumstances it’s just very firm but well damped. It has a particularly nice “oiled” feel as you go over broken or rutted surfaces.

I’ve never experienced a car that, when driving down a road with a challenging surface, has suspension which keeps the wheels so tightly fixed to the surface whilst always absorbing the bits you really don’t want them to follow! The electronic dampers do have a firmer sport setting and it’s much the same in that yes, you feel the imperfections in the road more, but it’s still a controlled and surprisingly quiet ride. The suspension noise is well contained, which is something that can’t be said of the road noise!

My final point from my first few weeks with the car is an unusual one - it returns a quite impressive 22mpg, which I find incredible given the performance on offer. That’s around 30% better than I averaged in the C63.

Initially, I wasn't as excited about this car as have been with some of my others, mainly due to the looks but also because I couldn’t really appreciate just how good it was to drive before I drove it! It’s a grower, though; definitely a car that you learn to like more and more over time.

That said, it’s not perfect, so over the next few months I’ll be updating you on what’s good and bad about owning and running a 997 Turbo. 

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