Target: Targa

A light in the darkness of the night. A red Porsche 911 Targa on the empty streets. Urban cinema.

It is not the high-speed car chase that gets the adrenaline pumping. Rather, it is the intensification of subtle sensations, contrasts blurring in the half-light, the colours and sounds of the night; a sense of relief defines the state of mind, the fading away of all that is unpleasant, reconciliation with the world. And the question: “Form. What is it?”

The 911 has been delivering consistently good, reliable performance for decades. It is entirely justified to single out the Targa. The clean 911 silhouette without a spoiler, defined and strikingly accentuated by the Targa bar, an open roof, gentle curves, wide fenders and a horizontal strip of lights at the rear. The ABCs of getting to know sports cars. It is the idea of best facing the world and its day-to-day demands with plenty of charisma, a good dose of technical audacity and a certain open-mindedness. Hardly any car embodies this better than the 911 Targa. For exactly 60 years, it has evoked deep, honest, revolutionary thoughts like no other. A great story: the rise and fall of a hero, a catharsis spanning three model series, and a comeback that outshines it all. That is the Targa story. It is epic.

At this point, a brief historical digression is unavoidable. The 1960s, USA. A huge, important market, including for Porsche. However, the new safety regulations for cars – particularly in the event of a rollover – made it virtually impossible to offer a convertible with a soft fabric roof. What to do? Would 911 drivers have to make do with the windows down? A sunroof, if nothing else. In California? Well … No! Without further ado, Porsche unveiled the 911 Targa at the 1965 IAA: a rigid roll bar for rollover protection, solid and stable, with an aluminium and leather roof, plus a fabric soft top featuring a plastic rear window.

For a short while, from 1987 to 1989, there was even a Turbo Targa. Its success was modest. Then came the paradigm shift with the 993. The distinctive roll bar was no longer necessary. The Targa was fitted with a large panoramic glass roof that could be opened. “More light!” To quote Goethe’s last words. Looking back, it’s clear that this was a misunderstanding – both in the case of Goethe’s last words and the Porsche Targa. The 996 and 997 stuck with the panoramic glass roof concept. They weren’t a hit either. Looking back, Porsche got a bit carried away here over the course of three model series, or rather ignored a key factor for success whose full significance was only recognised a little later: design.

This return to form came with the 991 series from 2014 onwards. The roof bar is back! And it’s more striking than ever. World premiere at the Detroit Motor Show. “Imagine meeting your childhood sweetheart again. And she’s become even more beautiful.” Porsche itself used this slogan to promote the new Targa back then. The 991 Targa thus marks a moment of realisation: that features derived from technically necessary and creative solutions come to play a role in the storytelling around the design, to the point where the technical necessity may cease to exist, yet the design must remain. To put it another way, technology legitimised the design; then the design emancipated itself from technology and became a sculptural entity in its own right.

Let us call it the highest form of form, for design derived from technology differs precisely in this respect from purely aesthetic sculpture, which, devoid of any functionality, can devote itself exclusively to the laws of beautiful form. Pure sculpture does not have to do anything. The car, on the other hand, does. And the 911 all the more so. To conclude: where design finally breaks free from the underlying technical necessity, yet persists – just like this Targa bar – there the case for design as the number one legitimate reason to buy is complete.

One is tempted here to draw on the ancient Greek philosophers and speak of the Platonic ideal. Plato, after all, once spoke of ‘forms’ as eternal, perfect examples of worldly things. Plato would probably have driven a Targa. And he would have appreciated the roof mechanism at least as much as the form itself. Nor is it simply the technical allure of the luxurious eccentricity of an expensive sports car. No, it is the spectacle itself. Pure theatre. A performance that, in 19 seconds, tells you almost everything about the human condition – that is, those particular characteristics of humankind that set us apart from other forms of life created by nature. Only humans can come up with something like this.

The punchline? It’s a reversal of the Targa bar’s story. After all, the ingenious technology behind this spectacular folding roof mechanism had to be developed, above all, to make the design possible.