hey ya'll, looking for advice on which car or cars i should consider for purchase.

i am looking for a 2000 model year or so and would like to stay in the 40k to 50k range.

i am looking for a car that has good track manners (great would be better). i have the HPDE bug pretty bad and have been building an E36 for about a year and a half. Porsche has been on the list of cars to own from a very early age.

i like the Cayman S but by the time i order the options i would want the price is mid 70's. it pains me but i don't see the point of spending that much for that car.

the local dealer has a couple of 911's on the lot. 40th anniversary 911, Carerra 4s, etc but i don't know anything about the model distinctions.

and lastly, but probably most important is the rear engine handling dynamics. i have heard horror stories regarding snap spin and am wary. my E36 is relatively easy to gather in when i f-up. i have read, i believe, where the later 911's are more stable than those from decades past.

any advice would be welcomed. thanks

 

The tendancy to spin out will probably haunt Porsche 911s forever, but in truth the modern ones are no more prone to that than any other car. That well deserved reputation was earned at a time when Porsches had: a) rather crude (by today's standards) swing axle rear ends, and b) tires all the way around with roughly the same trend area. Combine that with too much weight on the rear end and the handling was treacherous.
Today, suspension design is far better so it keeps the tire flat on the ground at all times, unlike a swing axle, and modern tire technology offers a wide range of tire section widths, so you can put 235s on the front and 285s on the rear of a 996 and that tends to "balance the handling"::tread area to match the weight distribution.
Finally, my 2004 Carrera 2 (I don't know about earlier models) has electronic stability control which intervenes with braking to indidivual wheels or something like that to keep the car on track, if and when its sensors the car might slide. I am not sure it if has ever saved me (the similar system in my vette has, several times!!) but it has activited about half a dozen times during my one year of ownership, usually when the car is in a tight turn, or a wet road, with a lot of bumps in it. I do know that the car is more stable and feels more secure driven fast than my Corvette (even when stock), and 'vettes are not know as tricky handling cars. Overall, my Carrera actually understeers a bit too much (i.e., the rear feels too well planted compared to the front. I am thinking of upgrading the front tires to a wider width to give it a bit more grip.