Magnus Walker has made a name for himself as a Porsche influencer with a collection that includes everything from air-cooled 930 Turbos to front-engined 944 track stars and even a SEMA-bound 914 art car.  But Walker is also branching out beyond Stuttgart's products, recently picking up a pair of E-Type Jaguars and exploring a new relationship with Mercedes-Benz.

Clearly, he's not treading the same well-worn path as most Porsche purists, who tend to hate anything that's not strictly an air-cooled 911. I recently visited Walker's Downtown Los Angeles Arts District headquarters to chat about a new video he released in partnership with NativeFour entitled "Ascension" and was surprised to discover he also counts four different versions of the infamous 996-generation 911 in his stable.

Magnus Walker's 996 Collection

Now, everyone who knows anything about Porsches has undoubtedly heard all the hype about water-cooling, IMS bearings, and headlight designs that render the 996 perhaps the most controversial car of all time. But when I recently took a high-mileage 996 Cabriolet out for a test drive, I came away incredibly impressed, so I had to quiz Magnus Walker on what he loves about such a divisive model as it fits into Porsche's long and storied history. Luckily, he was happy to launch into an off-the-cuff explanation of his 996 collection, which runs the gamut from early base models to a rare high-spec (and high-mileage) 911 GT2 that he believes Darth Vader could have driven.

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Headlights, IMS Bearings, And Water-Cooled Engines

Magnus Walker Porsche 996 3
via Michael Van Runkle / HotCars

As Walker pointed out, any conversation about the 996 generation immediately devolves into a discussion of Porsche leaving air-cooled engines behind in favor of water-cooling, which led to IMS bearing flaws, and divisive headlight designs. Walker himself isn't too concerned about such things, though he did admit he prefers the 996.1 headlights on his Guards Red 1999 Aerokit car (identifiable by factory option code XAA under the frunk hood), which were shared with both the GT1 Le Mans racer and the 986 Boxster.

While some 996 owners might lie awake at night worried their IMS bearing might implode any day, Walker focuses more on how his car drives—296 horsepower and 258 lb-ft of torque in a rear-engined, rear-wheel-drive coupe that weighs less than 3,000 pounds sounds pretty good.

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The Deal Of The Year (Maybe The Century)

Magnus Walker Porsche 996 10
via Michael Van Runkle / HotCars

After early 996 buyers went up in arms, decrying the decision to allow the 911 to share so many body parts with the lower-priced Boxster—including everything forward of the front doors—Porsche made a headlight change for the 996.2 generation by essentially swapping in the "broken-eggshell" headlights that had previously been reserved for the 911 Turbo. Besides the looks, this headlight design also allowed for better airflow to the car's front-mounted radiators, which helps to support the 996.2's larger 3.6-liter flat-six engine that was rated at 320 horsepower when new (despite the increase in displacement, the 996.2 in coupe form still weighs in at less than 3,000 pounds when equipped with a manual transmission).

Incredibly, Walker found his Slate Grey 996.2 for only $5,000 after posting on his popular Instagram feed that he was in the market. Sure, it's high-mileage (he admits he doesn't even know how many miles the odometer shows) and has been repainted, but once again, Walker focuses on the fact that it drives surprisingly well. Try finding a better car at that price anywhere—good luck.

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Stepping Up To A GT3

Magnus Walker Porsche 996 2
via Michael Van Runkle / HotCars

Perhaps the most prized example in Walker's 996 menagerie is the GT3 immediately on display behind his garage door. Unfortunately, it's not a unicorn GT3 RS, which is Walker's number-one favorite Porsche GT model ever but was never sold in America. Possibly to make up for that dearth, he did have his "base" GT3 into the renowned Porsche tuning shop SharkWerks for a lookover before picking it up in 2018.

If SharkWerks had their way, there's a good chance this GT3 could keep up with a legit GT3 RS and live up to its matte black hood, mirror caps, and side stripes that hearken back to the legendary Brumos Porsches of old. Even in factory trim, the 996 GT3 remains impressive to this day thanks to its 3.6-liter Mezger engine, which pumped out 380 horsepower with a screaming redline of 8,200 RPM.

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Darth Vader's 996 GT2

Magnus Walker Porsche 996 4
via Michael Van Runkle / HotCars

If Walker's GT3 isn't the king of the hill in his 996 collection, then the black 2002 GT2 above takes the cake. It's almost certainly the most valuable, simply due to the rarity factor, even though he bought it from Paul Kramer of AutoKennel with around 90,000 miles on the clock. (It also benefits from $50,000 in receipts passed along from the previous owner, who daily drove it in California.)

The GT2 reigned as Porsche's legit range-topping supercar until the debut of the Carrera GT in 2004, thanks to twin-turbos bolted onto a Mezger flat-six. Compared to its contemporary Turbo, the GT2 employed upgraded turbines, larger intercoolers, revised ECU tuning, and rear-wheel-drive only, which earned it the "Widowmaker" moniker because amateurs might have struggled to tame up to 477 horsepower and 472 lb-ft of torque (those stats are for 2004 models—Walker's 2002 model year would have been rated slightly lower, at 456 horses and 457 lb-ft of twist).

As a sign of how far every automaker in the industry has come since the early-2000s, especially with regards to turbocharging, the range-topping 996 GT2's specs actually compare quite closely to the current 992-gen Carrera S, which Walker refers to as the non-Turbo turbo. The only difference is that where a 996 GT2 would have weighed (at most) 3,175 pounds from the factory, the 992 Carrera S can balloon up to over 3,700 pounds with ease.

Walker may prefer the GT3 for spirited driving, but the GT2 has its pros, too. It features slightly softer suspension and has more interior amenities (all-leather everything), but the best part might be when that boost kicks in and the GT2 proves why it was capable of a 4.0-second sprint to 60 miles per hour way back in 2002. Walker describes his GT2 as the Porsche Darth Vader might have driven, partially thanks to the blacked-out wheels, but he wanted me to convey that he's on the lookout for some original factory GT2 wheels instead.

They could be hard to find, since they're not shared with the Turbo and measure 8.5 inches up front with a whopping 12 inches out back—but that's the kind of rubber required to tame the GT2's tremendous boost when it snaps heads back on the Angeles Crest Highway that Magnus Walker could almost call home by now.

Sources: excellence-mag.com, autokennel.com, instagram.com, stuttcars.com, and sharkwerks.com.

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