How to Drive It: Porsche 911

It's Not the Car

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Once, long ago, a German engineer looked at a VW Beetle and thought, “Ahh, my little streitzel, we should tango with the hot-rod physics of love!”

The Porsche 911 is divisive. People love ’em. People hate ’em. People fire ’em backward into ditches and Armco and spit excuses for how it wasn’t their fault—widowmaker car, Wreck-cellence Was Expected, blah blah blah. (“Too much understeer! Too much oversteer! Chappell Roan! ANYTHING BUT ME!”)

Is it the [fault of the] car? It is not!

This show’s format rotates weekly, because squirrel. This ep’s format is called “How to Drive It.” Please do not hit play while you are in the middle of crashing a Porsche and expect it to help.

Related Trivia: Ross and Jeff have raced 911s professionally. Sam has tested countless 911 variants for places like Road & Track and 000—from 2.0-liter Daytona winners to a 934, a 935, and most of the road models since 1964. Also, “streitzel” is both a Hans Stuck nickname and a kind of German pastry, and if those facts bring you joy, you are indeed nerdy enough for this show.

This episode was produced by Mike Perlman.

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ABOUT THE SHOW:

It’s Not the Car is a podcast about people and speed. We tell racing stories and leave out the boring parts.

Ross Bentley is a former IndyCar driver and a world-renowned performance coach and author. Jeff Braun is a champion race engineer. Sam Smith is an award-winning journalist and a former executive editor of Road & Track magazine. Together, we explore the emotion at the heart of the machine.

We don’t love racing for the nuts and bolts—we love it for what it asks of the bag of meat at the wheel.

New episodes every Tuesday.