Model 997.1 Carrera S Year 2005 Acquired November 2012

After another month of amazing weather in the UK it was finally time to put down the camera and meet up with some of my fellow LTL columnists for a road trip around the North Yorkshire moors! It’s something I had been eagerly waiting for as the Carrera S hadn’t been out of the garage for a number of weeks.

It was all made possible by our good friend and 997.2 Turbo owner Joe Croser, who very kindly took the time out to organise an awesome route over two days which started very close to my home town in Collingham. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky as I was joined at the meeting point by Joe, Rob and EXLTL contributor Sean Parr with his new 996 Carrera 4S.

Joe promised that the route he chose had some epic roads, which I was very keen to experience with them being so close to home for me and having never driven them before. I have to say – definitely wasn’t disappointed! There were some amazing switchbacks and fast twisty bends I didn’t even know existed!

I followed Joe for a good stint on the first day and I have to say I’ve never been a fan of the how 911 Turbos sound in comparison to the normally aspirated Carrera S, as there’s usually hardly any grunt, but Joe’s upgraded Sharkwerks exhaust sounded simply incredible!

The weather was also extremely unusually hot, which meant for very sticky roads and grippy tyres, but my trusty 997 Carrera S did not disappoint, as always! I still love how the 3.8 delivers its power in the higher rev ranges.

I did notice on some of the slightly bumpy Yorkshire roads the suspension felt like it was almost bottoming out with the 20mm-lower springs fitted, making it slightly unsettled at times. Something I feel may be helped by the fact that the struts are now 13 years old! I think I may look at addressing this with full new Blistein suspension struts that support PASM at some point very soon.