New Porsche 911 Turbo
Next year’s 911 Turbo – still all-wheel-drive secure, still GT plush, now faster and sharper than ever. We hitch a ride with 911 chief Frank-Sntde en Walliser
Frank-Ste en Walliser – the new Mr 911 – shows us what 2020’s Turbo can do
How many trees are there in the Black Forest? It feels like I’m on a mission to see as many as is humanly possible in just a few hours from the passenger seat of a pre-production Porsche 911 Turbo Convertible. We approach some from unexpected angles. Others are almost close enough to touch. There are very few straight roads in the Black Forest, so it’s just as well we’re in a car that relishes bends so much, and has the comfort and composure to sustain that enthusiasm all day, and the grip to ensure we don’t have a sudden career-change to lumberjack.
This is not some reckless thrash through the wooded vastness of southwest Germany. I’m in the very safe hands of a Porsche test driver who comes here so often that he’s given some of these trees names. And our transport is the latest version of a car that for all its immense power and breathtaking pace is also supremely secure and protective.
Pre-production Porsches are usually painted solid black, like today’s 911 Turbo S, and have only minimal camouflage. You can see plainly that there are no visual surprises. The most significant new elements are the redesigned rear bumper-cum-diffuser, which accommodates four trapezoidal tailpipes, plus multi-spoke lightweight alloys, bigger and more slippery lateral air intakes, slimmer and wider daytime running lights, restyled bumpers and more elaborate ground-effect wingwork.
You can see why they might want to keep the 911 Turbo visually low-key and let its performance speak for itself. It’s struggled with image in the past. Early Turbos were decried as widow-makers that would turn your hair grey between breakfast and lunch, but more recent generations have seemed to target rich ego-trippers, notorious poseurs and chest-wigged best-agers. The 996 and 997 Turbo in particular were not without some justification known for being lost in the wilderness between sanitised faultlessness and budding boredom. They were comprehensively kitted out with sound-deadening material and the 997 Turbo S even dropped the manual gearbox.
But this time, Porsche has steered the Turbo in a slightly more back-toits-roots direction. Here’s Frank-Steffen Walliser, the man behind the 918 project, and more recently in overall charge of the motorsport division, but now the new ‘Mr 911’, replacing the recently retired August Achleitner. ‘As always, compliance is key, because compliance means control,’ he says. ‘You want a sports car to respond in a sharp and positive manner, but the 911 Turbo is a little different since super-quick or super-clever feedback could easily overshoot the target. After all, the very last thing an engineer wants to do is unsettle or even scare the driver, who must always feel in charge, so a small margin for error here and there won’t hurt.’
If the external changes are low-key, there’s a little more going on under the skin. But nothing that alters the fundamentals – no hybrid elements of
even the mildest sort, for instance. ‘The benefits of partial electrification are marginal compared with the complex weight, packaging and cost issues,’ explains Walliser. ‘Weight in particular is obviously critical for every sports car. Unfortunately you can’t de-content a Turbo like a GT3 because the clientele wouldn’t tolerate it. Instead, the car gains a few kilos in the shape of additional convenience items and the new eight-speed PDK transmission. You would not believe the damage an extra set of gears does to the calorie count.’
How has the driving experience been sharpened up? ‘Little things: stiffer joints, harder rubber bushings, tighter attachment points, modified spring and damper calibrations. What we’ve definitely refrained from is turning a nicely balanced GT into a hard-edged street fighter.’ Cast-iron sombrero-size brake discs measure 410mm at the front, 390mm at the rear. The tyres measure 255/35 ZR20 front and 315/30 ZR21 rear. Variable-rate, ⊲
PORSCHE HAS STEERED THE 911 TURBO IN A MORE BACK TO ITS ROOTS DIRECTION
variable-effort steering controls all four wheels, enhancing manoeuvrability and boosting stability. The digital safety net is highly configurable.
Equipped with marginally beefier rear wings and an accordingly wider track, the 992 Turbo S is almost as aggressively tyred as the GT2 RS. The tiny contact patch deficit is easily compensated for by the broader calibration of spring and damper settings on turf like this. The rear-wheel steering is not quite as slam-dunk radical as in the 690bhp tearaway, and then there is the added benefit of all-wheel drive.
Repeatable on all types of sealed surfaces, it’s the never-wavering turn-in grip that completes the 10 out of 10 handling score. A quick flick at the wheel, a stab of throttle, a moment’s wait followed by a little opposite lock et voilà, another creamy slide is in the can. I just sit there, watching in awe.
The new Turbo is the wrong car to be offered with a rollcage, even bigger – 21/22-inch – tyres or a wilder bodykit. What customers of the 2020 model do get is a much more elaborate aero pack. The rear wing is still fixed, but its surface area has been increased by about 20 per cent for even more downforce and straight-line sure-footedness. The nose sports bigger air intakes to cool brakes and radiators, but it also incorporates venturi-effect aero elements that teach the front end improved manners at high speed. The newly developed engine is fed a bigger dose of oxygen, rams cooler air straight into the intake manifold, and exhales through a modern-art intestine exhaust system that sounds more Harley than Porsche at idle speed.
Despite the intrinsic choke effect of the mandatory particulate filter and the absence of any form of electric boosting, the high-revving but low-end-torquey six-cylinder engine obeys throttle orders with the hurried eciency of an infallible footman. Fuel consumption? No numbers yet, but on the road a lot depends on how it’s driven. I dread to think of the kind of numbers we’re merrily generating today…
At one stage, I swear my lips have begun to form the first line of Hail Mary when the front end finally grabs the last piece of tarmac before doom, the rear wheels follow in a similar sabre-shaped arc, and we pull through, nose and steering suspiciously light, fat rear end squatting mid-corner like a sumo wrestler.
When Walliser leaves for his next appointment, we head back out again with a Porsche works driver. Unlike Walliser, Jonas activates the sports exhaust – a new option for the Turbo, and one that defies the ‘gentleman’s GT’ side of this car’s character. The same goes for the firmer damper setting in Sport Plus and the weight of the steering, which trades some of the lightness and the relatively strong self-centring force for a more progressive, beefier action. Nuances only, for sure. But when you work with the 992 Turbo day in and day out, you quickly recognise the benefits, which Jonas says include a more transparent connection between the road and the driver’s palms, let alone the seat of the pants, and a chassis that still won’t get upset by irregular road surfaces.
There’s no ocial verification, but according to the Weissach grapevine the hottest 992 can accelerate 0-62mph in 2.7sec, which is phenomenally quick for a vehicle that – unlike an EV – does require an extra blink of the eye to summon maximum torque. But for road cars the stopwatch is not the decider, and neither is the academic ability to outrun an Airbus A380 at take-off speed. For the record, though, we’d like to add that this Porsche can beam itself from a standstill to 125mph in about 8.5 seconds. (The non-S version of the Turbo has around 580bhp, we’re told.)
A tiny improvement in acceleration and equally minuscule increase in top speed does not suggest that the new Turbo will turn out to be better than the old one. But the finer points do. What matters more is the how, not the how fast. It’s taken half a step back towards its original DNA, which has grown a little too cushy since the raw 930 started the breed in 1975.
The ultimate 992 (for the time being) now seems a little more involving, a little more responsive and a little more agile overall, offering a spicier blend of sportiness and convenience. The litmus test comes when we swap seats early next year.
THE NEW 911 TURBO OFFERS A SPICIER BLEND OF SPORTINESS AND CONVENIENCE