TOTAL 911 VERDICT

Jason isn’t alone when he says he had misgivings that the new engine that replaced the Mezger wouldn’t live up to its predecessor. “But then I discovered that the combination of the DFI 3.8 and PDK was brilliant and made the Gen2 Turbo fantastic fun. It’s really a GT in the old sense: fast, refined and very easy to drive. We have a Turbo S Cabriolet on the forecourt and I think at £83k it’s the best-value Porsche we have at the moment.”

Of course, as sales director at Paragon he would say that, but he also has a point. The pinnacle of the 997 range is a comprehensively resolved 911 and its relatively modest dimensions will probably appeal to more traditional 911 buyers. Whether the cost of the S is justified over the plain Turbo is subjective, as Greg Kable said. The S commands 15 per cent more than the Turbo, a greater gap than when they were new and any Turbo S has a cachet – they are special cars and the low mileages of the models on sale support this. As a luxury GT, in its price range a decade-old 997 Turbo S has no real competitor.