Chris Harris's Clubsport changed my mind on the best 911 | GRR

The most junior member of which was one C Harris Esq. So I passed the time writing unkind comments in red pen all over his fledgling copy, a fact he reminds me of to this day. Happily however we remain friends: always forgive, never forget, the same motto by which I live.

A few months later I toddled off to the ‘Ring for a track day in my beloved yellow Porsche 993 Carrera RS where I found Chris in his older, far slower 911 ClubSport. So I thought I’d follow him round for a lap to see whether the lad could pedal. At the time, and this might surprise you, he had little idea that he could.

Given the relative gulf in power between our cars, I thought it would be easy to cling to his rear wing, but it wasn’t. At all. I had to try quite hard to keep up with the bloke. What’s more his lines were clean and smooth, he appeared to be taking little out of either himself or his car, for his own car it was.

And on the same day I discovered Chris could really drive, I discovered he’d been driving an absolute peach of a car too. For when the ClubSport was new (it was built for just two years between the summers of 1987-89), I was far too junior to have been allowed to drive them. So I never had. Indeed I’d never driven any 911 with the sweet G50 gearbox that replaced the recalcitrant 915 unit towards the end of the G-series Carrera’s lifetime.

But by the time I met Chris at the Ring a dozen or more years later I’d driven plenty of 911s, and presumed the ClubSport would just be slightly sweeter version of the car upon which it was based. But it wasn’t, it was something else. With around 70kg removed (no sunroof, air-conditioning, electric windows, central locking, rear seats, rear wiper, door pocket lids, under-sealing, sound deadening, radio, fog lamps, luggage compartment light, or passenger sun visor) it was usefully lighter. The engine was balanced and blueprinted and said to have at least 240PS (177kW), compared to the 231PS (169kW) of the standard car. A limited-slip differential was made standard fit, it had a short shift gearlever and Bilstein dampers too. So it was actually a very different animal.

How different, however I had forgotten all that in the twenty odd years since I last drove a production ClubSport, which I was able to do again earlier this week. I drove it in some fairly exotic company (a Carrera GT and a 4.0-litre 997 GT3 RS) but on narrow, give and take and usually wet roads it was amazing how easy it was to keep up with its wider, less nimble stablemates. They felt like racehorses, the ClubSport like a greyhound. It was so agile, so communicative and so pure. And you don’t even need to worry about those old 911 traits like locking its wheels under braking in the wet: it’s a condition modern tyres have almost completely eliminated at road speeds.

But despite being so light, so focussed and such fun, what really struck me as I drove was how usable it was, and not just because of those compact dimensions. Sound deadening or not, this is not a noisy car and what sounds it makes are absolutely delicious. The ride is also fine, which may have something to do with the tyres. You wouldn’t want to use such an old and valuable car as a daily driver but as the go anywhere, do anything recreation it would be absolutely superb.

One last thing. This generation of 911 has the reputation of being the best built of all, and it shows. The car I drove had done 130,000 miles, many of them hard, on road and track. But because of what it is and the fact it has been fastidiously maintained throughout its life, there was not so much as a squeak or rattle to hint at its age or mileage. Sadly I can’t afford even a standard Carrera, let alone a ClubSport, but I can scarcely put into words how happy I was to have made its acquaintance again after all these years.

Photography courtesy of Bonhams.