Kicks like a mule

Relax your focus a bit and the Porsche 959 could be just another 911. Its bodywork is uncluttered and smooth, like it’s been tumbling around at the bottom of a stream for 100 years. Peer in through a window and unless you know your way around these cars, you’ll just see Thatcher-era 911 – the tall, slender seats with their shapely bolsters, the steering wheel with its two horizontal spars, all of it finished in mid-grey leather to match the workmanlike dashboard.

Your eyes will wander across to the five dials in the oval instrument binnacle, the rev counter right there in the middle of them, and you’ll think 911 all over again.