Porsche 911 Targa: its jewellery already on

Some cars demand attention. The Targa just takes her hat off, slowly, and waits for the room to notice. I met her at a Porsche showroom in Sydney in grey, and grey has never behaved less quietly. That signature Targa hoop ran a bright band across her shoulders like a piece of jewellery handed down since the sixties, and the half-cabriolet roof above it promised theatre before anyone had touched a thing. I'm supposed to be a professional. It didn't help.

The roof show

Ask nicely and she does one of motoring's great party pieces. The glass rear canopy tips back, the roof panel folds itself away like a butler clearing the table, and it all ends with that hoop standing proud against the sky. It's half cabriolet, all occasion, and it turns the school run and the midnight fuel run into separate galas. The hoop isn't just decoration either, it's the structural piece that lets her be open-topped and unmistakably 911 at the same time.

Underneath is the honest 911 truth: a flat-six singing behind you, all-wheel drive keeping her manners good in any weather, a cabin you could commute in daily without a single complaint. She costs serious money and looks like more, which around here counts as arithmetic in your favour.

Four crowns, one on retainer

Four crowns, and I want it minuted that the hoop earned one of them on its own, jewellery that happens to hold up a roof. The fifth's not refused, just on retainer with the GT department: the day a racing wing turns up on a Targa, I'll be there at dawn with the box already open. Until then, four crowns, worn at exactly the angle a tiara should be.

Come as you are. Leave with the roof down.