Porsche 911 Carrera (996)
Why 8.4: The first water-cooled 911, the first with a shared front end — the headlights and bonnet came from the Boxster — and the first on a new body that was lighter and stiffer than the 993 it replaced. Purists called it the end of the 911; Porsche called it the car that saved the company, and the sales figures agree with Porsche.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Sound
The M96 3.4 revs cleanly to 7,300 rpm and has the flat-six beat under load, with no turbo filtering it the way the 996 Turbo's does. But the first water-cooled 911 also lost the air-cooled fan whir and mechanical clatter, and the stock exhaust was the quietest Porsche had yet fitted to a 911. Pleasant, not a reason to buy.
6-cylinder · naturally aspirated · 7,300 rpm redline · rated 6.5 / 10 for engine sound
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €60k (1999) → €28k (2026), trending down · illustrative data
Child seats · ISOFIX
ISOFIX was spreading through these years rather than fitted across the board — whether a given car has rear anchors depends on its year and market.
Children were expected in the back. Front-passenger ISOFIX effectively didn't exist in this era, and airbag deactivation was patchy — treat the front seat as a no unless a specific car proves otherwise.
Derived from production years and seating layout, not a per-car source. ISOFIX was standardised as ISO 13216 in 1997, required on new EU model types from 2011 and on all new EU cars from 2014.
The long version
The 996 is the cheapest 911 you can buy and has been for twenty years, which has done more for its ownership record than any press review ever could. The styling was disliked, the M96 engine carried the intermediate-shaft-bearing scare, and the air-cooled crowd refused to call it a real 911, so values collapsed to the point where a running Carrera cost less than a hot hatch. The people who bought at that price did not store them. They drove them to work, took them on track, fitted IMS retrofits and sports exhausts, and put six-figure mileages on cars the market said were worthless. That is the index's definition of enthusiasm. The 996.2 facelift of 2002 fixed the headlights and added a 3.6 with 320 hp, and the early 3.4 cars now have a small following of their own as the lightest water-cooled 911. Prices have started to lift from the floor, but a 996 Carrera is still bought by someone who intends to use it, because there is no other reason to buy one.