2008 Porsche 911 Targa

A Good Kind of Glass Ceiling

The Porsche 911 Targa blurs the line between coupe and convertible and benefits from some surprisingly practical features.

The Porsche 911 Targa aims to provide the enjoyment of open-air motoring without the compromises most convertibles bring in terms of top-up comfort and convenience. In some ways it succeeds; in others, it doesn’t.

The Porsche 911 Targa is nearly identical to the 911 Carrera Coupe, except it has a retractable glass roof. The original 1967 Porsche 911 Targa had a simple removable roof panel. So when the first 911 Targa with a sliding glass canopy debuted in 1996, it created a sensation.

But now even cars like the affordable Saturn Astra hatchback give sweeping sky views through a huge panoramic glass roof more than twice the size of the Porsche 911 Targa’s. That makes the 911 Targa much less of a standout.

The Porsche 911 Targa is designed to split the difference between a coupe and convertible: it costs $7,600 more than a similarly equipped 911 Carrera Coupe and $2,700 less than a similarly equipped 911 Carrera Cabriolet.

On the upside, it retains all the qualities that make Porsches such great cars: seductive styling, superb acceleration and braking, a sporty ride that’s just tolerable enough for daily driving, excellent interior comfort for a sports car, and superb quality.

That said, we find it hard to justify the extra expense of the Porsche 911 Targa over a comparable 911 Carrera Coupe. For one, its sliding glass roof, though slick in form and function, doesn’t make an opening much larger than the sunroof that comes standard on every 911 Carrera Coupe. As such, it doesn’t offer nearly the same open-air experience as the 911 Carrera Cabriolet with its fully retractable soft top.

In our eyes, the benefits to the 911 Targa in comparison to other 911 models have nothing to do with open-air motoring and everything to do with practicality: Porsche says the 911 Targa offers the most rear cargo area of any 911 variant and it lets you access that cargo area with a rear window hatch.

Porsche says 911 Targa owners drive their vehicles more often and for longer distances than those who have other 911 models, so it added those features to the Targa model to directly appeal to their tastes. Rather than taking the 911 out to a fancy dinner or a day at the racetrack, for instance, a Porsche 911 Targa buyer is more likely to take his or her car on a weekend getaway.

The 911 Targa comes in two versions, 4 and 4S, both of which have four-wheel drive as standard equipment. The Targa 4 comes with the 3.6-liter, 325-horsepower, six-cylinder engine also used on the base 911 Coupe and Cabriolet. The Targa 4S comes with the 355-hp, 3.8-liter engine used on the 911 Carrera S Coupe and Cabriolet.

As on other Porsches, stepping up to the “S” trim brings a few more standard features in addition to the stronger engine, like bi-Xenon headlights and the high-tech Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM), but for a considerable price hike of about $10,000.

The current Porsche 911 Targa has more standard features than the previous-generation car — last offered in 2003 — and so starts at a significantly higher price point than the older model.

Read on to find out whether the Porsche 911 Targa is worth the hefty price premium over the 911 Carrera Coupe and whether its practical packaging delivers enough open-air thrills to keep you from paying another $2,700 for the 911 Carrera Cabriolet.