Get this: an interior-based optional extra from Porsche you might actually want. Not leather-stitched air vent vanes or a mahogany/carbonfibre steering wheel – but a touchscreen.

So what? Well, this isn’t an option for a brand new Taycan or Panamera. This is a touchscreen – plus digital radio, Apple CarPlay, and Bluetooth / USB connectivity – for classic Porsches. It’s a bang-up-to-date infotainment centre for cars that were born before smartphones, before the internet, when satellite navigation was a classified tool of the Cold War.

It’s called Porsche Classic Communication management, and it comes in two flavours. There’s the 1 DIN, 3.5-inch display version with twin knobs that fits in everything from the earliest, 1963-onwards 911s, right up until the 993 – the last of the air-cooled Porsches. It’ll also go in the front-engined stuff: the 924s, 944s, and 928s. 

This version’s been around for a while, but it’s now been upgraded with DAB Radio and Apple CarPlay, so you can listen to Waze reroute you after your arse-engined old-timer spins the wrong way in a bend. It costs €1,439.89.

What’s brand-new and exciting for people after a slightly more recent piece of Porsche History is the PCCM Plus set-up. Got a 996 that could do with some 21st Century infotainment? Listen up…

The €1,606.51 Plus system is a 2 Din unit with an interface pretty similar to the one you’ll find in a S$550k-ish new 992. The 7-inch screen gets Android Auto compatibility to go with the Apple CarPlay, there’s a Points of Interest nav menu, and it slots rather gracefully into the 996’s blobby, Nineties-tastic oval-obsessed cabin. It’ll also go in a first-gen Boxster.

Thing is, is this cheating? Is being free of notifications and traffic updates not part of the classic car experience?

Shouldn’t you be getting lost on purpose instead of using nav when you’re driving the old-timer? Couldn’t your true-crime podcasts wait until you’re back in your ‘normal’ car?

STORY Ollie Kew