Fair warning: the next 750 words are going to be about the Porsche 911. Some of the readership thinks we cover this car too liberally, and they’re right, if for the wrong reasons. Why that is will soon become clear, but now’s your chance to click away and pretend none of this happened.
Still here? Much obliged. I’ve got 911s on the brain more than usual. It must be a result of a rear-engined diary concertina. In the past few weeks, I’ve driven RML’s Turbo S-based P39 prototype; I’ve been in Weissach to preview the new hybrid ‘dot-two’ Turbo S and have my innards torn up during a passenger ride; and I’ve done 1600 or so miles in the updated Carrera S.
The highlight of this triple-header is hard to call. The RML is a carbon fibre-bodied tip of the hat to the street-legal 911 GT1 Strassenversion, only with 50% more power and a literal tonne of downforce, plus road manners to match a factory-standard 911. It’s the answer to a question few are asking, but it is quite cool. Equally, sitting beside Jörg Bergmeister again as he peeled a Turbo S development car into a filthy great slide at 115mph – while asking how my day was going – was also cool. Actually, it was absurd. The same ride-along gave a colleague from another well-known mag the shakes, and he races stuff.
Then there was the Carrera S. Hardly the most memorable of cars, yet in the space of a few days it was able to serve up tail-out thrills on a West Country B-road, nail an indicated 202mph on an autobahn and crack through a 10-hour stint in Burmester-fed comfort with no small feeling of specialness. Yet it was not so conspicuously special that I got jittery leaving it in possibly Mannheim’s dingiest car park. If you want not just a sports car but an accomplice, here it is.
We write a lot about the 911 not because we are in Zuffenhausen’s pocket. Those pockets are emptier than usual, in any case. It’s because the 911 is an extremely good car. Not only this, but there’s also the depressing dearth of opposition to challenge it, which is a recent development.
This was a topic that I mulled often during those many miles in the new Carrera S. The competition: where the hell has it all gone? Not that long ago, the Carrera S, a showroom powerhouse derivative that generally accounts for about a third of all 911 sales, could be tightly cross-shopped with a great many cars: the Jaguar F-Type, Nissan GT-R, Lotus Evora, Mercedes-AMG GT, Aston Martin V8 Vantage, Audi R8 and Maserati Granturismo. Even Lexus was involved with the sensuous LC 500.
Now the Jag, Nissan, Lexus and Audi are all gone. The V8 AMG comes only with unnecessary 4WD. The pricing of the Aston and Maserati has gone to the moon. Unlike the Evora, the Emira has no rear seats and poor storage, and it’s on thin ice anyway. AMG is cooking up a CLE with a V8, but if it weighs less than a bull elephant, I’ll be amazed. The Corvette? Cracking car, and now made in RHD, but it’s just too flashy, isn’t it?
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