Porsche 911 Carrera S Comparing old and new 911s
How does a Carrera S rate alongside more rarefied 911s as a real-world driver’s car?
WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT
To find out if a turbocharged engine has done anything to the blunt the 911’s all-round appeal
In the past few weeks, I’ve spent quite a lot of time in 911s with more power, less weight and greater agility than ‘my’ 911 and I wondered in advance if these far more seductive machines might somehow sour our relationship. Well, now I know.
The first was a 2010 secondgeneration GT3 RS, which I had for a week for a story we published on 1 November. To me, this GT3 RS represents the greatest production Porsche of all, a dizzying synthesis of howling mechanical components, telepathic handling and just enough everyday usability to make you want to take it on almost any journey. Mine included Waitrose and Lidl.
After that came the brand-new, state-of-the-art Nürburgring-busting GT2 RS, a 691bhp pile-driver of a machine that I had for just a single day, but one I’ll not forget any time soon. As an aside, this is the first time I’ve preferred a GT2 to its GT3 contemporary, because what its loses in throttle response, rev range and sound is more than countered by what it gains in sense of occasion and the remarkable accessibility of what remains nevertheless utterly nerveshredding performance.
Anyway, having stepped out with these two, what would the resumption of life with one of the slower 911s on the market now feel like?
The thing that interested me most is that it never felt slow by comparison, not even to the GT2 RS. Yes, the GT2 has an extra 277bhp, but in normal driving, you can’t use all or even most of it. The idea of someone trying to get the most out of a GT2 RS on the route I drove from Swindon to Silverstone makes the blood freeze in my veins. Only when I got to Britain’s biggest race track could it be driven as its maker intended. Now, you might presume similar could be said of the Carrera S, which even with a footling 414bhp is still a genuine 190mph car, but that’s not how it works. You can use far more of its power far more of the time, and when you’re not, it’s also a far more quiet and comfortable place to be.
In the corners, much the same is true. Even lacking the track-day rubber that shoes both the old GT3 RS and new GT2 RS, the Carrera S will pull 1.2g in steady-state cornering on any dry, reasonable surface. This means it can generate as much lateral g as it can in the longitudinal axis. Put another way, it can exert a force on your body mid-corner every bit as great as that you experience in an emergency stop. And you really want, let alone need, a car that can go around a corner on a public road quicker than that? Me neither. On track, I got the GT2 RS to momentarily pull over 1.6g lateral, the craziest figure I’ve seen for a road car on road tyres but, again, you need a private facility even to approach such numbers.
What’s left is feel and there’s no question that whether you drive them fast or slow on road or track, the GT cars feel quite unlike all other 911s and, to me, this is far more important than any additional power or grip. And here, progress is not helping the 911, for not even the mighty GT2 RS is as communicative as the sevenyear-old GT3 RS, because when it comes to establishing a link from road to driver via the car, electric power steering remains inferior to the hydraulic systems it has almost entirely replaced.
But now the two GT cars have gone and the Carrera S remains, I find its charms no less captivating. On the contrary, discovering how close it ran them in so many important real-world areas has, if anything, cemented my feelings towards it. Sure, I’d choose to go for a drive on a mountain road or race track in any GT Porsche ahead of this standard offering, but as a thing with which to actually live, it remains as captivating and true to the original 911 philosophy as ever.