The trouble with this particular sleeping beauty is that she’s starting to wake up. She lives in the shadow of the 1973 911RS 2.7-litre, which gave 210bhp, officially weighed 1075kg and which has long been recognised as an investment in the ‘arm and a leg’ category.

The 911 which followed in the 1974-76 Model Years was the G Series, the first 911 with its bodywork restyled to meet US 5mph bumper impact regulations. The big bumpers, with compressible ‘bellows’ at each corner, were not much liked at first but nobody’s too bothered over that these days.

A clever bit of the revised design was that the 911’s weight remained almost unchanged despite the big, boxy bumpers, so the upmarket Carrera version of the G Series gave exactly the same performance as that of the previous year’s RS. With 210bhp still on tap, top speed was a mean 149mph, with 0-60mph in 6.3sec. The G Series also gives the authentic, classic 911 road manners and handling feel sought by diehard Porsche enthusiasts.

Note that the original G Series standard car gave only 150bhp from its 2.7-litre engine. Naturally, with a top speed of 130mph, that model was considerably slower than a Carrera. There was also a 911S model, giving 175bhp and a top speed of 140mph.

All the G Series 911s were available as Coupés or Targas. An option on the 911 and 911S, but not the Carrera, was the undesirable Sport-o-matic transmission. A few were sold with that automatic gearbox but nearly all have been converted since then to the five-speed manual gearbox of those times.

There’s nothing technically wrong with such changes but a non-original specification should have an effect on a car’s value now. An original Sport-o-matic, if such a thing still exists at all, would probably be worth even less than a converted car, however. Nobody wants that Sport-o-matic gearbox.

The thing is that it has never been that hard to convert any G Series 911 to the much more desirable Carrera spec. There were many thousands of G Series 911s made, but only about 1500 Carrera Coupés, so you must check the real identity of your sleeping beauty in this case. You need to know who she really is, where she’s been and what she’s done before you get really intimate.

And if you want to establish a meaningful relationship with a G Series 911, do look in the Classic Driver car database.

Text: Classic Driver
Photo: Porsche