As a child, I had a poster of all the iconic Porsches on my bedroom wall. I would stare at it, hoping one day to drive one of those beautiful, exotic cars. Sometime in the early 1990s I got my wish, in the form of a late ’80s 944 owned by an easily coerced schoolmate, who, for some reason I have yet to understand, let me drive it way over the speed limit around Davie Circle in Chapel Hill. Dreams do come true.
You will not see the 944 in the Porsche by Design: Seducing Speed exhibition that opens Oct. 12 at the North Carolina Museum of Art, and when judged against the 22 automobiles in the show, it will be obvious why. The 944 wasn’t Porsche at its best, but the 911s and 356s that show off the famous designs of the German carmaker are.
You do not have to be a car enthusiast to love the show. You just have to have been a kid once, with dreams of a life improved by cars that run faster than you can handle and look good doing it.
