What is it?
The new 911 Targa, the open-top Porsche for those who prefer their fresh air to come with additional bodywork.
Since the 993, the manufacturer has favoured a sliding roof mechanism for its least-seen model, which wholly preserved the car’s sweeping roofline; now, in a seismic (for Stuttgart) design rejig, the B and C-pillar are ditched altogether, replaced with a roof bar and wraparound rear window.
For Porsche 911 devotees, the conceptual homage will be obvious enough. The original ’67 Targa - Porsche’s response to potentially stringent US safety regulations on convertibles - possessed the same combination of rollover hoop and panoramic (foldable in this case) rear window, features which remained familiar until the mid ’90s.
Of course, this being Porsche in 2014, things are now rather more sophisticated than manually removing extraneous items on a sunny day. Now, the expensively fettled roof is made of two moveable parts: the soft top and the rear window - the latter peeling away in stage one to allow the former to retract over the Targa bar and stow itself away behind the rear seats.
Below the window line, the car is a little simpler. It shares virtually all its underpinnings with the standard 911 cabriolet, and, characteristically, is only available with Porsche’s all-wheel drive system - meaning it gets the 4’s wider body.
Elsewhere in the line-up, the starter model receives a 345bhp 3.4-litre flat-six and seven-speed manual, while the 4S - driven here with the optional PDK - features the 394bhp 3.8-litre version and will cost from £96,316 when it arrives in May.
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Solution in search of a problem
What about a purists' Porsche targa?