2+2 equals PHWOAR

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Matthew Broderick's delivery of a rebellious yet effortlessly able teen hero in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off perfectly encapsulated the feeling of an emerging generation of uncompromising, impatient, outside-the-box thinkers who had their sights set on the promise of a computerled, globally dynamic and have-it-all future.

This was a time when even Bill Gates was left looking out of date, holding a 5% in floppy disk on the cover of Time magazine just as the 3½in version was being widely adopted and flash memory was being conceived. Entire economies shook under the shifting plates of technological and cultural change, as new industries cast aside the simple disciplines of the past and newly unshackled, computerised financial markets pounced on fresh margins of volume trading. The work-hard, play-hard generation behind it all demanded everything at once; from those subject to their urgent exclamations into handheld phones to the ultimate toys, status symbols and personal transport, the do-it-all sports car that strode confidently into the supercar playpen.

The natural choice was the Porsche 911. By then into its third decade, Stuttgart's rearengined wonder had established itself as the arbiter of sporting ability, taste and prestige, with glowing magazine reports and the sort of unattainable allure that came with its increasingly unreasonable cost. But Porsche had timed its even more expensive Carrera 3.2 beautifully and, upon its release in 1984, you could even specify a Sport Equipment kit that made it look just like the MD's 930 turbo. At the height of the UK's post-'86 financial Big Bang, the 911's £32,849 list price fell neatly within reach of many a trader's quarterly bonus.