Every so often a newcomer makes noise about toppling the Porsche 911 from its well-earned position in the sports car pantheon. And every so often the wizards of Weissach, Porsche's epicenter of engineering, respond by tinkering with the 45-year-old design just enough to ensure it remains the world's most engaging sports car.
The 911 seems an easy target, burdened as it is by a design locked in the iron grip of Porsche tradition and by an engine that should have been placed anywhere else but in the tail. But, just when some upstart figures it's got Porsche dead-centered, the 911 finds fresh legs and runs off, out of range of even the most avid hunters.
The newest 911 arrives in America in September, initially with a four-car lineup of rear-drive models. The Carrera Coupe and Cabriolet receive the smaller of the two new engines, a 3.6-liter horizontally opposed 6 with 345 horsepower, while the two Carrera S models are powered by a 3.8-liter variant of the boxer rated at 385 horsepower. Prices range from $75,600 to $96,800 for models with the standard six-speed manual transmission; add around $4000 for the optional seven-speed automanual gearbox (more on that in a few paragraphs).
Though it's built around the same architecture as the outgoing version, the new 911 gets a family of more powerful, more efficient six-cylinder boxer engines. Identical in size to the outgoing powerplants, the new engines are otherwise (to be redundant in the interest of accuracy) totally new, built from 40 percent fewer parts — which is totally cool if you're the production manager and cool, too, for the driver, who benefits from the more compact engine's reduced height and lower mounting points and, thus, improved center of gravity.
The entire powertrain is 22-percent more rigid (without chemical aids!) and 12 pounds lighter than before, and the sucks, squishes, bangs, and blows are far more controlled, efficient, and productive. Credit the first use of direct injection in a Porsche sports car engine, a high compression ratio, and reduced engine friction for the lowered fuel consumption, which measures between 12 and 13 percent on the European test cycle for both motors. And credit the same list for the increase in power, along with the contributions from a new electronic fuel pump (good for 3 hp), freer-flowing intake system, lower-pressure exhaust, more effective dry-sump oiling and, of course, the computer geeks who rewrite the software to make all these pieces work so well together. The 3.6's 345 hp represents a 6.2-percent increase in power, while the 3.8's 385 hp is more than 8 percent greater than before. Torque for both engines is up by about five percent, and the curve has been reworked for more accessibility and longer duration.
Previous Porsche sixes were renowned for their elastic powerbands, but this new engine takes the fun-per-rpm quotient to new heights due to such elements as "seven percent fewer rotary moved masses" (a reference to lower rotational inertia, not the worldwide fall-off in RX-7–club membership). The new six begins its song in a lower register, and when the throttle is pressed the muted bass crescendos into a roar of meticulously balanced explosions. Students of mechanical engineering should study its sonic profile so as to better understand how design can be transformed into emotion. The whipsawed soundwaves raise pitch as swiftly as the revs increase, which is swift indeed, but, even when every bit of power is unleashed, there's not a single shriek of stress or complaint about an overzealous throttle. Only the soft bump of the rev limiter reveals it's time to pay attention to the gears.
And attention is worth paying, because the new Porsche-Doppelkupplungsgetriebe twin-clutch automatic (PDK) is a vast improvement over Tiptronic S, Porsche's outgoing, and generally unloved, manumatic. Built by ZF, PDK successfully bridges the gap between workaday commuting and weekend track sessions, delivering a freshened level of performance, efficiency, and refinement.
Porsche pioneered this technology back in 1983 in its 956 racecar and won some races in 1986 with it in a 962, but it wasn't until recently that Porsche and ZF were able to refine the concept for mass production, ease of use, and comfort. PDK is 22 pounds lighter than Tiptronic; so efficient it requires no auxiliary cooler (except for a small oil chamber that cools the two integrated "wet" clutches); and has a very tall seventh gear for exceptional highway mileage. A range of shift strategies, initiated by the driver, vary from full automatic (and most fuel efficient) to full sport (when fitted with the optional Sport Chrono Plus package), which changes gears up to 60 percent faster than the torque-converting Tiptronic could manage. But perhaps the PDK's most revealing number is the Carrera S's 0-60-mph time: 4.3 seconds, a full 0.2 seconds quicker than the same car with a manual six-speed. Traditionalists won't be disappointed with the new car's six-speed manual, which has been reworked for crisper throws, but even those die-hards should consider test-driving a PDK-equipped 911 to see how rewarding automanual gear selection has become.
Porsche's styling department didn't stand by and watch this new 911 take shape without its own fiddles, most of which subtly yet effectively transmute a familiar presence into something fresh. The front bumper has larger air intakes, and the larger rearview mirrors are mounted with double arms, but it's the daytime LED running lights, brake lights, and now standard bi-xenon headlamps that give this generation of 911s its signature look.
Changes inside the cockpit include a new touch-screen Porsche Communication Management system and fewer buttons to figure out; a new three-spoke steering wheel that houses the PDK's shift switches at the apex of the lateral arms and the rim; and lots of new options, including a carbon-fiber sports bucket that is both comfortable and ideal for resisting the pull of high g forces.
Our first sample of those forces came at Porsche's famous Weissach test track. A new Porsche 911 Carrera 3.8 coupe throbbed quietly at track's entrance, an open door and carbon-fiber bucket beckoning. A young man who looked like last night's waiter on his way home from work walked up and asked, "So, are you prepared?"
This was a Porsche test driver?
As we approached the car, I mimicked the twist of a steering wheel to inform him I'd be the one doing the driving. He thought that was hilarious. Ach, but who could imagine such a thing? his laugh said as he climbed behind the wheel. I flashed him a sour look and retreated to where I was told to be, on the passive side of the cockpit.
I was tempted to make the young man understand the irony of the situation. I've been an acolyte of the Porsche faith for more than three decades, longer than he's been alive, and I've spent many hours on racetracks in 911s and countless other types of Porsches. And I believe Weissach, the epicenter of Porsche engineering, to be hallowed ground. I wanted to make him see why it was so excruciatingly frustrating to sit beside him, in the wrong seat, for my first taste of a new 911.
It was as though I'd finally gotten Angelina Jolie naked, but all I was allowed to do was study her tattoos.
I realized it was a management decision. Weissach is narrow and tough, and there's nothing to be learned from journos out there testing airbags (and I'd get my chance in the car the next day on the wild and woolly roads of Germany). But this youngster looked like he could be slinging schnitzel instead of flinging cars. If I couldn't be at the wheel, at least let it be an old hand, like Hurley Haywood.
Worse, I'd just signed a release absolving everyone of anything if something happened. I was at the total mercy of someone who undoubtedly never felt the bite of trailing throttle oversteer in its prime.
During our first lap together, this kid did little else but drone on about the new 7-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, guide me through the multitude of buttons and switches for various permutations of performance, grip, and climate, and suggest I admire such aesthetic and ergonomic embellishments as the color-coordinated seatbelts and new, larger touch-screen infotainment interface. All pertinent stuff, sure, but stuff I could get in the press kit. Was this guy a test driver or Porsche's new animatronic sales manual?
Slices of real life managed to slip through his narrative: The engine sounded divine. Like no other 911 engine before it there was no whine. PDK gear changes in full automatic mode were so smooth they were sensed rather than felt, and manual shifts were confirmed only by watching the driver thumb the steering-wheel-mounted switches, themselves a huge improvement over the wimpy buttons of Tiptronic. Plus, it was pleasant to rediscover how comfortable it is just to motor along in a 911, even one fitted with 19-inch wheels. Still, the driver was going so slowly I was tempted to catch up on some of the sleep I missed flying in the previous night from L.A.
Just as I was getting worked up (I've hit turbulence over Iceland that was more fun than sitting beside this human book on tape), he completed the first lap, braked to a halt, turned to me, and his eyes lit up like the 911's new LED brake lights. I thought he either was going to go completely off script (say, bust out of Weissach and race the polizei to the border), or we had arrived at that part of the movie he likes — the car chase in the third act.
"Now," he announced, "I vill show you ze new Launch Control, ze Sports Chrono Package, und ze effects of ze optional limited-slip differential."
And suddenly we were pushed forward with a turmoil of unrelenting force, the sort of physical displacement the rational person expects will lead to a bad end. Some primeval part of our brains still remember that, not long ago, 62 mph in 4.3 seconds meant a cliff, the suck of gravity, an uncertain landing...
To elaborate on that theme, achieving a similar measure of speed over time in the new 911 was no more complicated than jumping off a cliff, but the ease of doing so did little justice to the sophistication of the interceding electronics. Launch control withholds and then releases the powertrain's energy with the brutal efficiency of a short right to the chin — only it was our backsides, snug within the carbon-fiber sports buckets, that took the brunt of the hit from the 385-horsepower boxer. Launch control is, asking no pardon for the expression, a kick in the ass.
Before I could lift my eyes from the speedometer, we were approaching the braking zone for the Northern Curve at about a buck thirty. On our first lap the driver had revolved through this constant radius U-bend like the lazy waiter he resembled, but on this second lap, he channeled some inner fire and directed it through his right leg to alternately punish the two pedals with resounding slaps of shoe leather.
I appreciated the irony he was throwing back in my face. Maybe I wasn't dreaming my dream of driving Weissach, and maybe the guy shaved once a week, but he was damn quick, quicker than I'll ever be. And he was teaching me things that would have remained beyond my fumbling search toward the limits.
As we continued the fast lap, he demonstrated the miracle of Porsche brakes (larger now to rebut the more powerful engines), and the safety net provided by Porsche's stability management system. Even through corners that tried to pull the car offline, when lateral forces rose well above 1.2 g and the fluid in my inner ears sloshed violently, the 911 tracked as solidly as a rock rolling down a drainpipe. The recalibrated stability control is a marvel of communication. Instead of eliminating the fun by reducing the car's ability to approach its limits, the system guides the driver through a corner with slight, transparent nudges to maintain equilibrium. Those with enough faith in their skill can turn it off completely to appreciate fully the new 911's prescient feel for the road.
Which I never managed to do the next day on public roads. Pesky policemen and heavy traffic prevented the car from stretching its legs properly, and a light drizzle prevented me from trying anything stupid on the winding back roads, but despite the frustrating limits imposed by the interests of safety and self-preservation, it was clear the newest 911 retains the world's-best steering, superlative chassis kinematics, and pavement-gathering brakes. Once again, the 911 is ready to scoff at the challengers and run out of range.
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