Six cylinders, rear wheel drive, German heritage, and four seats in a pretty coupe shell—though each of this week’s featured cars uses those same ingredients, they follow very different recipes. Either one will provide buckets of driving thrills with a spine-tickling soundtrack, not to mention that warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from owning and caring for a fine piece of engineering.
In honor of our month-long Bavarian Experience, we’re once again featuring an M6. Though not quite as elegant as its E9 predecessor (what is?), the E24 is still one very fine looking automobile, its razor-sharp sharknose, large greenhouse, simple detailing, and spectacular BBS’d stance all contributing to a whole that’s somehow greater than the sum of its angular parts. What really sets this car apart, however, is the race-bred S38 straight six behind that lovely slanted double kidney grille. With six throttle bodies, twin cams, twenty-four valves and a refined, yet somehow still quite raw, nature befitting of its competition heritage, revving one of these things out is an experience you’ll replay in your dreams for years afterwards.
Competing for your attention is a beautiful Porsche 964, this one a very well-preserved example from its first year in production, 1989. Representing the first substantial redesign of the 911 since its introduction a quarter of a century earlier, the 964 brought then-modern levels of refinement and a litany of performance enhancements to the already time-honored 911 tradition, while retaining much of the quirky character that made earlier cars so special. Pull the little trigger on its door handle, slide into the plain yet supportive seat, depress the floor-hinged clutch, and turn the left-mounted ignition until the flat six slung way out back coughs to life, it’s hollow, lumpy, metallic idle like nothing else on planet Car. Like its Munich-born cousin, a drive in a 964 will etch itself in your subconscious.
So, which six-cylinder, four-seat, two-door slice of driving heaven most appeals to you?
1989 Porsche 911
Click here for the Porsche details.
1988 BMW E24 M6
