"More romantic, more laid back": meeting a hero in the gorgeous 1967 Porsche Targa

Maybe it was because the first one I saw had a surfboard on the roof. I’m not even sure how I saw it. My memory says there was a backdrop of Californian coast, which means six year old me definitely saw it on telly. It was my first Porsche road car love (I’d already become utterly smitten with the 935 Le Mans cars).

Back then I didn’t know what a 911 was, so it was the combination that did it for me, the fact someone had driven a little yellow sports car to the beach to go surfing, when what I travelled to the coast in was a battered and ancient Hillman Hunter and what I did there was limp over pebbles with a bucket and net.

This was all a long time ago, but the original Porsche 911 Targa was already old news by the time my young fantasy got going. It was first shown at the Frankfurt show in 1965, the first 911 body style that wasn’t the coupe. It was billed as a ‘safety convertible’, the roll hoop there to protect passengers.

Photography: Dan Bathie & John Wycherley

It went on sale in 1967, initially as what was called a ‘soft window’ where the plastic unzipped and could be tucked down, while the centre roof panel lifted out. The following year a fixed rear window became an option and by 1969 that was your only option. So these soft window 911 Targas are a rarity – it’s thought less than a thousand were built. However, Porsche also did a 912 Targa (which featured a flat four instead of a flat six) and built nearly three times as many of those.

This is an original 1967 car. It is charming. Which is another way of saying it’s a lovely, lovely thing to tootle about in on a warm summer’s day, but doesn’t feel in the least sporty. Times have changed when the intervening gulf is now nearly 60 years wide. Maybe its 9.1secs sprint time made it a rocketship then, now it only ensures that no matter how gorgeous the view forward, the view behind seems permanently filled by a white van.

I breeze along, fingers light on the skinny steering wheel, wind whipping across my skull, life is good

Don’t get me wrong, the air-cooled engine is buzzy and zesty in all the right ways, works hard and sounds so good, almost soporific at idle but giving way to a crisp eagerness as the revs rise. But it hadn’t yet found its real mojo. The same applies to the chassis – it doesn’t come across as a car you want to push hard enough to discover if the legendary lift-off handling traits are there.

However, as I breeze along, fingers light on the skinny steering wheel, wind whipping across my skull, life is good. Cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in this would be just the ticket.

Why no full convertible then? There was a reason for the Targa taking precedence: this car was aimed at America and back then the Department of Transportation was having a good look at banning convertibles altogether due to their appalling safety record in rollover crashes. The Targa hoop added both protection and chassis strengthening. And an instant identifier that Porsche continues to use to this day.

There’s been a Targa across every generation of 911, but we’ll skate quickly over the 993, 996 and 997 generation cars where it became little more than a glorified sunroof for nigh on 20 years. That changed dramatically with the 991 in 2014, when Porsche went deliberately retro and created one of the most elaborate roof mechanisms this side of a Grand Designs project. Cracking bit of design, but weight and wind buffeting count against it.

But until 1983 if you wanted a wind whipped 911, the Targa was your only choice (quiet pedants, I know Porsche built 13 pre-production examples of the original 911, but it never went into production. And this was so early it was still badged a 901...). I loved driving this early example. It’s not a 911 in the way we think of it today, it’s something more romantic, more laid back, more vibey. Stick a surfboard on me, I’m done.