Express.motors@reachplc.com @expressmotoring New 911’s quick off the marque

AS WE’VE explained many times, car companies like to load up their test cars with plenty of goodies in the hope we’ll tell you that you shouldn’t buy the car without them.And in the hope that you won’t dare not for fear of owning a car that you’ll then have trouble selling.

Excuse me, but how can you have a standard option? That’s what it says on the specification for the Porsche 911 Carrera that we’re testing this week. Under the standard options is the ‘2+2 body with rear engine’.

That’s not an option, all Porsche 911s have an engine in the rear. But that’s enough pedantry for today. Our test car is fitted with options in the proper sense of the word, £8,100 worth of them.

This recently launched Porsche is the entry-level 911 Carrera. Porsche launched the Carrera S version of what is known as the 992 generation 911 well over a year ago.What’s the difference between the two? Well for starters the Carrera costs £82,793 (without those goodies) against the Carrera S’s £93,110.

So what goes west with your ten grand saving? Not much is the answer.The S’s twin-turbo flat-six engine produces 450ps against the bog-standard model’s 385ps. I doubt you’d notice that the 0-62mph time drops from the more powerful car’s 3.5secs to the base car’s 4.2secs.

And I very much doubt that even if you trek to Germany’s autobahns that you discover that the Carrera does only 182mph to the S’s 191mph. If you’re reasonably well-off you buy a Golf GTI if you want a fast car that’s well-built and is no hassle to live with every day. If you’re very flush then you buy a Porsche 911. It’s always been this way.The Porsche is the sports car that is easy to live with.You can get the kids in the back, you don’t look too flash driving it and you won’t scrape loads of expensive bits from its bottom if your driveway is steep or the local speed bumps are like WW2 tank traps. Our test car is