A day out in the sunshine in not one but two Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolets

Call me a tart, call me whatever you like really, but I've always had a soft spot for the Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet. It's just one of those cars that has always done it for me somehow, and never more so than in Athena poster specification, with the uber rare 930 Flatnose body, plus a “will it won't it” 3.3-litre turbo engine dangling out over the rear axle.

Until yesterday I'd never driven a Flatnose before, yet I’ve always wondered what they might be like. The one you see above is from 1989 and is one of only nine built. There are now just eight remaining.

Its owner reckons it is worth between £80-100,000. I'd say he might be being a touch conservative. Either way, it's an absolute peach of an example. 

Almost everything on it has been restored or replaced within the last few hundred miles. It has the feel of a car that should probably be tucked up in an air conditioned museum to be honest, so shiny was everything above and beneath its bright blue skin. Driving it around the sleepy back lanes of rural Essex, I became acutely aware of its worth.

And I was pleasantly surprised by how rapid it still felt, too, and by how special it seemed generally on the move. People smile at you when they see this car, and that’s not always the case when you’re behind the wheel of a turbocharged Porsche.

As a stint in the new Turbo cab all too clearly proved. Twice I got the slow wrist hand wave in the 991 Turbo cab, and yet on both occasions I’d done nothing other than exist.

Mind you, the new car puts the old one in its place in so many ways to drive that you can almost put up with the antagonism it generates – because on the road it really is some weapon. Only a touch of shudder on the roughest of surfaces separates it from the coupe turbo dynamically, and that makes it one of the most rounded fast road cars money can buy in 2014.

Even so, were it my money (and it most certainly isn’t, not at this level at any rate) I still think I might plumb for the old timer ultimately. It’s quick enough and looks sensational, albeit in a late 1980s kind of way.

To do it justice one might have to grow a decent size ‘tash in order to truly feel comfortable behind the wheel of a car like this. Though that could lead to a different ball game entirely.