Porsche 911 Carrera
HELLO
£84,870 OTR/£93,646 as tested/£1,010pcm
WHY IT’S HERE
Can ‘the only sports car you’ll ever need’ turn its hand to anything?
DRIVER
Ollie Marriage
MISSION ONE: BIKES. WE’RE NOT TAKING IT EASY ON THIS PORSCHE 911 just because it’s a sports car. Because it’s not a sports car, it’s the sports car, the one that can do anything, that requires no compromise.
So... biking with a bunch of mates in the Brecon Beacons. Everyone else turned up at the bunkhouse in estate cars or vans. My brother and I also own VW vans, but there was no way we were going to chicken out of this challenge.
With two burly, decidedly unaero bikes mounted on the rack, I was convinced the 911 was going to gulp fuel. Kept to 70mph, it did 26.8mpg. That’s a massive win. Inside I dropped the rear seats and covered them with a sheet. The resulting space was big enough for a pair of front wheels – the tightest bit was squeezing a 29er through the door aperture. Bags, helmets, shoes, cameras and kit all followed. And a fan heater, because 16 blokes’ worth of wet bike kit takes a lot of drying. I could still see out of the back window. Porsche says there’s 264 litres of space (plus another 132 under the nose). I’m not sure how it’s measured, but I reckon it’s way more.
Wearing bikes, it looked great. Better still once wearing a layer cake of mud and grime. Aventurine green is a colour that works dirty, but not clean. My biggest concern was the interior, as it’s not wipe-clean leather but the corduroy cloth of the £6,620 Heritage Design package, which lifts the whole cabin, while presumably being bloody difficult to get ingrained dirt out of.
That aside, this is a basic Carrera. Options extend to the paint (£876), dimming mirrors with rain sensor (£387) and Park Assist with rear camera (£464). The seats slide manually, there’s no lane keep, the wheels are the smallest available and the engine boasts less power than a new Audi RS3. Couldn’t care less. What matters much more is that it came through its initiation with flying colours. Safe to assume there’ll be more missions like this over the next few months.