Cars with Jan Coomans. Porsche 911 Turbo S — David becomes Goliath

Of course, the traditional wisdom goes that numbers are fairly irrelevant when it comes to the actual driving experience. In this case, I don’t think that’s quite true. Because knowing what this car can do, driving it lends you a feeling of invincibility. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone. You’re in a 911 Turbo S. You can drive around for a month and not meet another car that comes anywhere near to being able to beat you. It’s weirdly relaxing and exciting at the same time. It is difficult however not to tap into those massive power reserves at every possible opportunity, especially because the amount of time that you can experience the Turbo’s savage acceleration end up being only very brief. It gathers speed as such an incredible rate that you simply can’t keep the throttle pinned for more than 2 or 3 seconds at a time before you start wildly exceeding what would be considered an acceptable speed on public roads.

But that’s not to say that there are no tradeoffs. The engine capacity is unchanged over the previous model at 3.8 liters, and making more power from the same sized engine means that you’re dealing with larger turbochargers. And while the engineers have done their utmost to limit the impact, you may find the engine in this car to be somewhat unresponsive. Especially if you happen to drive around in normal mode rather than sport or even sport plus. You’ve essentially got 3 cylinders and 1.9 liters of displacement to spin each turbocharger, which has to push through enough air to produce 325 horsepower out of each of the engine’s two banks of cylinders. It’s not terrible, but all the technology in the world has not been able to solve the basic problem of turbo lag. Which isn’t actually the most appropriate term to use technically, but I suppose it gets the point across without being pedantic. Basically, there’s simply a delay between pressing the throttle and the engine building enough boost to give you that real kick in the back.

You wouldn’t notice that on a racetrack where engine RPMs are consistently high, but on the street where you tend to be at (very) low RPMs before requesting more power with your right foot you need to take into account the time it will take for the turbochargers to spool up. This can also be seen, of course, as a “classic turbo” vibe. Turbocharged cars, especially in the olden days, were known for having biblical turbo lag followed by a very sudden increase of power. The 992 Turbo S is certainly very responsive by comparison, and the all-wheel-drive plus a myriad of electronic systems to keep things under control means that it won’t be earning the nickname “widow maker” like some of its ancient predecessors. And it helps to keep the car in sport mode, just turn the round dial on the steering wheel one click to the right. Normal mode is very clearly designed purely to get the lowest possible number for the CO2 emission test rather than be good to drive. The car will upshift very early, as low as 1300 RPM, and it will happily have the engine running barely over 1000 RPM in 8th gear when going at a steady speed. This is something that most cars do these days, which means that sport mode has become what normal mode ought to be like, and sport plus is what would pass for sport mode a decade ago.

Aside from the monumental heaps of power that are on offer, the 911 Turbo S is actually very similar to any other 911. The interior is pretty much identical, and so is the steering feel and even in terms of actual engine sound it’s difficult to tell the 3.8 apart from its smaller 3.0 relative. The main thing is simply that it’s a lot… faster. I’m also pretty sure that the suspension has been firmed up considerably over the more normal 911s. In fact, I’m not sure Porsche should have gone as far as they have to make the Turbo S go faster around corners. Around Moscow’s less than perfectly paved roads, the ride comfort was a bit borderline at times even with the adaptive dampers in their normal and softest setting. Especially troublesome are those really annoying sausage type speed bumps. You basically have to drive over them at a crawl or get a great big thunk from the front suspension. It’s a feeling you would expect in a 911 GT3, but the Turbo has always been the more comfortable car which settled for straight line missile status and left chasing lateral Gs to its more track-focused siblings. This time, it seems to want to be the fastest everywhere.

I did actually have a brief go in the Turbo S on the racetrack, thanks to some “friends in automotive journalism” who were doing a video shoot on Moscow Raceway. There, the new Turbo feels surprisingly at home. Throw on a set of Michelin Cup 2 tires and I reckon the new turbo would give the old GT2 RS a proper run for its money. The car already felt silly quick on the standard Pirelli P Zero road tires, and was ridiculously easy to slide around corners of literally any radius. Turn off the driving aids and then the Turbo S can be drifted on dry tarmac as easily as a Carrera 4S does the same on a frozen lake. This is a car that is very, very kind to one’s driving ego.

And, last but not least, I do think it looks a bit stunning. As with every new generation of the 911, it’s easy to fall into a pattern of “the old one looked better!” but enough time has passed now that I can appreciate the 992 also from a visual perspective. But the Turbo in particular impresses with its sheer width, and the side air intakes plus the rear wing give it a rather menacing look. Also – as much as I’m not one to like particularly bright paint colours – the racing yellow on this press car really does work. One thing I probably would prefer is the look of the regular exhaust with the 4 squared-off tail pipes rather than the two large oval ones that come with the sport exhaust. I’m all for more exhaust sound, especially since turbo engines are generally fairly quiet, and I don’t even mind the look of the sports exhaust, but I wish there was a way to have the best of both worlds.

Those of you who are heavily affected by obsessive-compulsive disorder may also be somewhat bothered by the fact that the image of the car on the infotainment screen may not correspond to what your car actually looks like. Like, the infotainment shows a silver Turbo S with the quad tail pipes even If you’re in a bright yellow one with the sport exhaust and two oval pipes. So if OCD is your thing, make sure to order your car in silver and without the sports exhaust. They ought to invent a Nobel prize category for this kind of in-depth car journalism, I’m telling you. But, I mean, the software on each and every new car is already heavily customized. There’s dozens of digital switches that are turned on or off depending on what you’ve chosen from the optional extras list. How hard would it be to add one (or a hundred) more lines of code to make the display show a car that corresponds more closely to the actual one? Food for thought, Mr Porsche!

All kidding aside, the question we’ve got to answer is if Porsche has made its 911 Turbo better without straying from the tried and true recipe. As much as someone who has never actually owned a 911 Turbo can be qualified to answer this, I think they have. People get the Turbo S because they’re into superlatives. One has to appreciate the number porn associated with this car, not to mention the countless YouTube videos that will be made showing this car murdering pretty much any other car in a straight line. It’s a stupendous engineering effort, and if this ends up being the last non-hybrid 911 Turbo we get then it’s a very worthy end of an era. Sure, it costs a heck of a lot more than a Carrera 4S and most people probably won’t notice the difference. But you would know. And that could very well be priceless.