Porsche 911January 2011

The Porsche 911 remains one of the great automotive anachronisms: a sportscar with its engine in the wrong place. Yet over the decades, and throughout successive generations, engineers have managed to tame the inherent instability brought on by the rear-mounted engine, creating one of the greatest driver's cars on the market.

Time has almost been called on the current generation, but its historical imprint leaves behind some of the finest cars ever to bear the 911 badge. While there is a bewildering range to flick through, the 997 delivers an almost peerless sports car experience in all its incarnations.

Financially speaking, Porsche 911 ownership begins with the Carrera range. Even at the base of the line-up the 3.6-litre flat-six engine endows the entry-level two-wheel-drive model with addictive performance (further embellished by the beefed up Carrera S) but the pick of the bunch is the recently added GTS.

As the most powerful Carrera, the GTS gets an upgraded version of the bigger 3.8-litre engine with the wider body and track usually found on the four-wheel-drive versions. The car uses the fatter footprint to great effect, combining towering grip with glorious, fluidic steering and a taut, exploitable sense of control.

Beyond the GTS lineup the 911 gets really expensive and, incredibly, even better. The GT3 has been sharpened into a hunkered-down hot rod; harder, beefier and faster than anything beneath it. But even this brand of brilliance is shaded by the GT2, which in stripped-out road-going race-car RS form is powered by a twin-turbocharged 611bhp 3.6-litre sledgehammer.

Other than the GT2, Porsche saves forced induction for the iconic Turbo, which, unlike its spartan sibling, is arguably the 911 at its most opulent. It's a tooled-up, hyper fast fist in a velvet glove, intended to suit the sensibilities and wallets of the very wealthy.

Finally there is the GT3 RS 4.0, a blistering, limited-edition final farewell to the 997 which combines a retuned suspension setup with the biggest engine to ever feature in a 911 - a race-derived 493bhp 4.0-litre flat-six.

That car will likely only ever be seen in the affluent hands of serious Porsche enthusiasts, but the 911 range's sheer magnitude ensures there are almost as many thrills to be had for half its six-figure price tag. Critically, all blend reliability and comparative practicality with the consummate performance car of the last half decade.