Porsche has evolved its latest 911 Carrera S into one of the most complete sports cars money can buy, blogs Road Test Editor Howard Walker.
Naturalist Charles Darwin would have loved Porsche’s latest 911. His Theory of Evolution, published in his 1859 tome On the Origin of Species, argued that complex creatures evolve naturally over time from more simplistic ancestors. He could have been talking about Porsche’s 911.
Back in 1963, when Porsche pulled the silk off its very first 911, it was a pretty simplistic creature. Those early cars came with a Two-liter air-cooled four-cylinder that, with a mighty 90 horsepower, delivered the neck-snapping acceleration of a Zamboni!
But fast-forward 49 years and six generations, and the 2012 911 has evolved into a rather more complex animal. Here is the most technically advanced 911 yet, a car that will automatically shut-off its engine at stoplights to save fuel, a car that steers its wheels, Prius-like, with electrical assistance. Yet evolution also sees this new 911 with even more power and less weight - the perfect supercar combo - to deliver the kind of performance that will tremble knees, moisten palms and have even the most seasoned sportscar-ista squealing like a two-year-old riding their first Radio Flyer. For me, this neue 911 has evolved in all the right ways. Its iconic shape has all the DNA of that ’63 original, yet its body is longer, wider and lower than its fifth-gen predecessor to give a wonderful feeling of interior space.
Aficionados will immediately spot the new domed headlights spread further apart to add visual girth to the car. And the strip of look-at-me LED daytime running lights above the big front air intakes. Those, and the new slim ’n slender tail lamps that somehow accentuate the new, beefier rear haunches. It’s a shape that’s toned, and honed and built for speed. It’s nothing less than automotive art.
Slide behind the wheel and you’ll see a cockpit that adopts many of the design cues from Porsche’s Panamera sedan. Gone is the vaguely low-rent look of the last model’s cabin, replaced with a bolder, more elegant, more luxurious design defined by a prominent, more stylish center console. A twist of the key ignites one of the world’s greatest engines - 3.8 liters of water-cooled flat Six. It’s the engine that powers the 2012 Carrera S, now packing a 400-horsepower punch - up 15 from last year - with max torque increased by 15 pound-feet to 325.
It’s coupled to Porsche’s dual-clutch PDK automatic - a brand new seven-speed manual is offered but really, why would you bother? Shift yourself, courtesy of the PDK’s new, proper paddle shifters, and enjoy light-switch-instantaneous changes. Or let it do the work for you.
The ferocity at which the 911 slingshots off the line is still utterly breathtaking, with standstill to 60 mph now being covered in under- four seconds. It feels faster. That’s because the engine redline has been upped from 7,500 to 7,800 rpm and Porsche has added what it calls a “Sound Symposer” to the car. This is an acoustic tube that runs from the engine to the rear parcel shelf and acts like a speaker at a Bon Jovi concert, amping-up the music.
But this new 911 has a more responsible side. Avoid foot to the floor antics and you can average close to 30 to the gallon. Features like “stop-start” and a new “coasting” function where the engine gets seamlessly decoupled from the PDK automatic, dropping the engine speed to idle while cruising, improves economy by 16 percent. Switching to electric-assist steering also does its bit to use less gas. But this being a Porsche, the new steering loses nothing in feel and precision and in telegraphing information back to the driver’s fingers.
Even with all its new features, the 2012 911 goes up only marginally in price. The base Carrera now stickers for $83,050, while the Carrera S now goes for $97,350.
Still the supercar bargain.
This is a truly magical car. The best 911 yet. The most usable, most luxurious, most complete 911. And nothing less than a masterpiece of evolution.
Darwin would have approved.
For more information about the latest 911 models from Porsche, please visit http://www.porsche.com/usa/models/911/
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