IT’S A You’ll need
THE man at Porsche who gave me the keys to this new 911 Turbo S in a socially distanced fashion had arrived at the firm’s HQ in his own Lotus.
An Elan from the early 90s – you know, the little convertible with frontwheel drive and a hot Isuzu turbo engine under its bonnet.
It looked restored but its owner said it was just well-loved. Only 162bhp from the engine but the car is light so goes well with, I think, 0-60mph in about 6.5sec.
It’s decades since I’ve driven one but I remember it being a lot of fun with fantastic handling.
A bit of a contrast to the Turbo S. Porsche’s latest heavy artillery weapon has a 3.8-litre flat-six twin-turbo engine that produces 650bhp.
It drives all four wheels via a new eight-speed PDK semi-automatic gearbox and has a top speed of
205mph. It’ll do 0-62mph in 2.7sec and 0-125mph in 8.9sec.
None of those numbers were of much relevance because I intended to drive the Turbo S over some lovely roads in Berkshire that cross the Ridgeway ancient road. Speed limit
60mph and in many places 50mph. Which is why I rather wished I was borrowing our man’s yellow Lotus. Small and narrow, unlike the Turbo S which has a track that’s 45mm wider than the standard 911 at the front and
20mm at the back.
And that car is a lot wider than Porsche 911s used to be. Wide is bad, skinny great as you have more road to play with. It’s obvious.
Porsche had supplied some PPE in the car but it really needed a few spare driving licences or the business card of a hotshot defence lawyer.
If this car looks fast on paper with its impressive numbers, it’s even more outrageous in the metal. Acceleration is ballistic and so is the slowing down, which you will need to be doing about a second after you hit the throttle.
The brakes are carbon ceramic, gripped at the front by very sexy yellow ten-piston callipers. Slip the optional Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM for short) into Sport Plus mode and two things happen – your back starts hurting unless you’re on a really smooth road and the rear wing pops up.
You can see this going on in the rearview mirror but you won’t spot the kerb-biffing front spoiler retracting.
There are several modes to play with, including Eco which activates