Porsche 911 History: When the 911 Came Out, and Every Generation to the 992
The Porsche 911 came out in 1963: it was shown at the Frankfurt motor show on 12 September 1963 as the 901, renamed 911 before sale, and the first production car left the line on 14 September 1964. The first year of the 911 on the road is therefore 1964; the first cars reached the United States in February 1965.
Since then there have been eight generations, from the original to today’s 992, and every one of them has kept a flat-six behind the rear axle. The first four were air-cooled, until 1998; every Carrera has been turbocharged since 2015; the first hybrid 911 arrived in 2024.
| The question | The answer | Where the date comes from |
|---|---|---|
| When was the 911 first shown? | 12 Sep 1963 | Frankfurt motor show (IAA), as the 901. |
| When was the first 911 built? | 14 Sep 1964 | The first series car left the production line; sales began that year. |
| Why 911 and not 901? | Peugeot | It claimed three-digit names with a zero in the middle. 82 cars carried the 901 badge. |
| How many generations? | 8 | Original, G-Series, 964, 993, 996, 997, 991, 992. |
| Last air-cooled 911 | 993, to 1998 | The 996 that replaced it was water-cooled. |
| Current generation | 992, since 2019 | First shown in Los Angeles, at the LA Auto Show in November 2018. |
| The 911 you can drive here | from $749/day | The 911 Targa; the 911 Cabriolet from $1,200/day. |
When did the Porsche 911 come out?
The 911 was shown in September 1963 and sold from 1964. Porsche dates the story to 1963; the first car a customer could buy is a 1964.
Porsche’s own sixty-year history of the car puts the premiere at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt: “The date was 12 September 1963”. It was presented as the successor to the 356, and it was not yet called the 911. Porsche’s company timeline then records that the first series model of the 901 rolled off the production line on 14 September 1964 — a year and two days later. The first cars exported to the United States followed in February 1965.
The name changed in between. Peugeot claimed exclusive rights in France to car names of three digits with a zero in the middle, so, in Porsche’s words, “Peugeot claimed the rights to the 0, and the new Porsche was called the 911 from then on”. According to Wikipedia’s history of the car, 82 cars had been finished with the 901 nameplate by then. They are 911s in everything but the badge.
So the answer to “911, which year” depends on the question underneath it. Shown: 1963. Built and sold: 1964. In America: 1965. Every one of those years is right, and a page that gives only one of them is answering a narrower question than the reader asked.
The first Porsche 911
The first 911 was a small 2+2 coupé with a 2.0-litre air-cooled flat-six behind the rear axle, rated at 130 PS. Its lines trace back to sketches by Ferdinand Alexander “Butzi” Porsche, Ferry Porsche’s son, drawn in 1959, and the silhouette he drew is the one every generation since has been measured against.
It replaced the 356, which had used a four-cylinder engine, and Porsche kept a four-cylinder car in the range alongside it: the 912, from 1965, with the 911’s body and a smaller engine. The six was the point. It gave the new car the smoothness of an inline-six in an engine short enough to sit behind the axle, and the flat-six has been the defining fact of the 911 ever since.
Two more firsts belong to the original car, and both matter in Los Angeles today. In September 1965 Porsche showed the 911 Targa at the Frankfurt motor show, which it called the first safety cabriolet in the world, with a fixed roll bar, built in answer to tougher rules for open cars in the United States; it went on sale in autumn 1966. And the fully open 911, the Cabriolet with no hoop at all, waited until 1983 and the G-Series.
Every Porsche 911 generation, from 1963 to the 992
Eight generations, in one table. The years are the ones Porsche gives in its own sixty-year history; the engine changes come from Porsche’s generation-by-generation comparison and its press releases.
| Generation | Years | The engine change | The one thing it is remembered for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original 911 (901) | 1963–1973 | 2.0-litre air-cooled flat-six, 130 PS, growing through the decade | The shape and the name — and the first Targa, shown in 1965 |
| G-Series | 1973–1989 | Still air-cooled; 2.7 litres in the Carrera 2.7; the first turbocharged 911 | The 911 Turbo, shown in Paris in 1974, and the first 911 Cabriolet, 1983 |
| 964 | 1989–1994 | A completely new 3.6-litre, still air-cooled | All-wheel drive for the first time, in the Carrera 4 |
| 993 | 1994–1998 | 3.6 litres, air-cooled for the last time | The last air-cooled 911 |
| 996 | 1998–2005 | Water-cooled | The end of air cooling, and the new headlights that went with it |
| 997 | 2004–2012 | Water-cooled, naturally aspirated, up to 3.8 litres | Round headlights back, and the first dual-clutch gearbox in a 911 |
| 991 | 2011–2019 | Naturally aspirated at launch; turbocharged Carreras from the 2015 update | A longer wheelbase, and the Targa hoop back in 2014 |
| 992 | 2019–today | 3.0-litre twin-turbo; the first hybrid 911, a 3.6-litre GTS, in 2024 | First shown in Los Angeles, and the eighth generation of the same idea |
Read down the third column and the history is three engine decisions. Air to water, with the 996 in 1998: Porsche’s own history calls the water-cooled engine the most important new feature of that car, and it is the line every 911 owner still draws. Natural aspiration to turbocharging on the mainstream cars, in the 2015 update of the 991, when Porsche switched the Carrera and GTS from naturally aspirated to turbocharged engines. And the first electrification, prepared in 2019 by an eight-speed gearbox with room for an electric motor in its bell housing, and delivered in 2024 by the 911 Carrera GTS, “the first road-legal 911 model” with a hybrid powertrain, around a new 3.6-litre flat-six. The same release confirms the 911 Carrera itself stays on a 3.0-litre twin-turbo.
Three dates this story often gets wrong
The 911 Turbo dates from 1974, not 1977. Porsche surprised the Paris Motor Show with it in 1974, and it reached customers as a 1975 model; 1977 is the year its output rose from 260 to 300 PS.
The 997 Carrera was not turbocharged. On the 911, turbochargers were for the Turbo models until 2015, when the 991 update moved the Carrera over. A 2004 Carrera breathes without one.
There was no hybrid 911 in 2019. The 992 launched that year with a gearbox ready for one; the hybrid itself arrived on 28 May 2024, as the Carrera GTS.
Why the 911 is still rear-engined and flat-six
Because the idea worked, and Porsche has spent sixty years refining it instead of replacing it. When the millionth 911 left the line in 2017, Porsche’s release said it plainly: “Uniquely, Porsche has never strayed from the founding concept of the original 911”.
The concept is an engine behind the rear axle, and there are three reasons it has outlived every attempt to call it a mistake. Weight over the driven wheels gives a 911 traction out of a corner and stability under hard braking. An engine at the back frees the front for a boot and the cabin for two small rear seats, which is why the 911 is a 2+2 where the mid-engined 718s seat two. And a flat-six is the six best suited to hang there: two banks of three, lying flat either side of the crank, with the balance of an inline-six and a fraction of its length. How a flat-six works, and who else ever built one, is set out on its own page.
The cost of the layout is the reason its history is so interesting. A heavy tail wants to swing wide if the driver lifts mid-corner, and generation after generation of the 911 is an engineering answer to that: wider rear tracks, longer wheelbases, all-wheel drive from the 964, electronic stability later. Porsche did build mid-engined cars — the 718 Boxster and Cayman are exactly that, and what the two layouts feel like side by side is its own comparison. It simply never moved the 911.
The 911 Cabriolet and 911 Targa in Los Angeles
The two roofs in that history are the two 911s we keep here. The 911 Targa, at $749/day, wears the brushed hoop Porsche first showed in Frankfurt in 1965 and brought back in 2014; the centre panel folds away behind it, and the car keeps the look of a coupé with the sky over the front seats. The 911 Cabriolet, from $1,200/day, is the fully open car that arrived in 1983: fabric roof, nothing above the windscreen once it is down.
Both carry the flat-six behind the rear axle that sixty years of 911 history are about; the current generation, the 992, was first shown at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November 2018. If the history is the reason for the trip, take the Targa to the coast for the hoop, or the 911 Cabriolet in Los Angeles for the roof that disappears entirely.
What it costs, and how it reaches you
The 911s take the top refundable deposit band; each deposit comes back 5–7 business days after the car returns. The Protection plan is priced per day off the deposit band, so it is higher on the flat-sixes, and your own full policy works instead if you have one. The live calendars and current rates are on the Porsche page, and where the price breaks on a longer booking is set out car by car.
Collection from our lot on Robertson Boulevard is free and delivery to the partner hotels in Beverly Hills is complimentary. Airport delivery is $150 both ways standard, where the car waits in the airport parking structure and you take the shuttle out to it, or $300 both ways VIP, where it is at the terminal when you walk out — half that for one direction.
The shuttle is about half an hour, and a 911 with a nose boot and two rear seats takes it in its stride. Drivers are twenty-one and up with a licence held two years; under twenty-five there is a young-driver fee per day, and on the 911s it is the higher of the two we charge. Mileage, fuel and the rest are in the terms.
The short version
The Porsche 911 came out in 1963, shown in Frankfurt on 12 September as the 901; the first production car followed on 14 September 1964, and Peugeot’s claim on the middle zero gave it the name. Eight generations later — original, G-Series, 964, 993, 996, 997, 991 and 992 — the engine has gone from air to water in 1998, from natural aspiration to turbocharging on the Carrera in 2015, and to its first hybrid in 2024.
What has not moved is the flat-six behind the rear axle. That is the 911 history in one line, and the quickest way to read it is from the driver’s seat: the 911 Targa and the 911 Cabriolet are on the Porsche page, each with its live calendar.
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Frequently asked questions
When did the Porsche 911 come out?
Nizo Luxury rents the Porsche 911 Cabriolet in Los Angeles — +1 (424) 303-6496 — at $1,200 a day and the 911 Targa at $749. The 911 was shown at the Frankfurt motor show on 12 September 1963, under the name 901. The first series car left the production line on 14 September 1964, and sales began that year. The first cars reached the United States in February 1965.
What was the first year of the Porsche 911?
1964 is the first year of the 911 on the road; 1963 is the year it was shown. The first 911 was a 2+2 coupé with a 2.0-litre air-cooled flat-six of 130 PS behind the rear axle.
Why is it called the 911 and not the 901?
Peugeot claimed exclusive rights in France to car names of three digits with a zero in the middle, so Porsche changed 901 to 911 before the car went on sale. Eighty-two cars had already been finished with the 901 nameplate.
How many generations of the Porsche 911 are there?
Eight: the original 911 (1963–1973), the G-Series (1973–1989), the 964 (1989–1994), the 993 (1994–1998), the 996 (1998–2005), the 997 (2004–2012), the 991 (2011–2019) and the 992, since 2019. The 992 was first shown at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November 2018.
When did the 911 Turbo come out?
Porsche showed the 911 Turbo at the Paris Motor Show in 1974, in the G-Series. It had 260 PS at launch, rising to 300 PS in 1977. Turbochargers did not reach the mainstream Carrera until the 2015 update of the 991.
When did the 911 become water-cooled?
With the 996, in 1998. The 993 that ended in 1998 was the last air-cooled 911; the first four generations all used an air-cooled flat-six.
Is there a hybrid Porsche 911?
Yes, since 2024. Porsche revealed the 911 Carrera GTS with a hybrid powertrain and a new 3.6-litre flat-six on 28 May 2024, the first road-legal hybrid 911. The 992 of 2019 had been designed with room for an electric motor, but no hybrid 911 was sold before 2024.
Can I rent a Porsche 911 in Los Angeles?
Yes. Nizo Luxury — +1 (424) 303-6496 — keeps the 911 Targa at $749 a day and the 911 Cabriolet from $1,200 a day, both rear-engined flat-sixes. The refundable deposit comes back 5–7 business days after the car returns, and the live calendars are on the Porsche page.