Review: Porsche 2012 911 Carrera S

The Porsche 911 is an odd duck. Here we have one of history's great sports cars, a strong-selling, fast, good-looking machine that reeks of sex and history.

It is a marker of success: "Timmy bought a Porsche! He must have gotten that banking job." High resale value makes it a good investment. It is also a technological triumph — despite their capability, Porsches are almost always reliable, long-lived things. And yet the model has always been something of an acquired taste.

There are a handful of reasons for this. At the moment, the 911 is the only mass-produced, rear-engined car sold in America. The subsequent rear weight bias has traditionally made the car difficult to drive at the limit and slightly unstable at high speed. Cane a 911 on the autobahn and you'll notice the steering going light and the nose wandering — Dancing! Flitting about the highway! Manly stuff! — above 160 mph. Porsche people find this charming. Detractors think it's obnoxious and anachronistic.

Porsche engineers being German, they simply saw this as a problem to be solved. The first 911 rolled off the line in the mid-1960s. Careful evolution has seen the car grow ever more docile and controllable, and yet faster. The Germans — again, being German — were apparently not satisfied, and so we now have the 2012 Porsche 911.

All that stuff we just mentioned? Let's just call it fixed.

Hold on. Fixed isn't the right word. More like blown to oblivion.

This is a landmark, and in more ways than one. The '12 911, known internally as the 991, is a ground-up revamp of the brand's most hallowed product. It is also just the third such redo in the model's history. From 1964 to 1998 (34 years!) the 911 used the same basic platform and an air-cooled, six-cylinder engine. From 1999 to 2011, it used a water-cooled six and a new platform, albeit one with a similar profile.

The new 911 shares basic proportions — but no significant parts — with its predecessor. It is longer, wider, faster, and more fuel-efficient than the car that came before it. The 911's body is a combination of steel and aluminum — the doors, roof, and several other key panels (about 45 percent of the car's mass) are made from the latter, cutting weight and lowering the car's center of gravity. Wheelbase is up by 3.9 inches, and the engine is now slightly farther forward in the car relative to the driver and rear axle. Porsche claims this bumps up body rigidity by 20 to 25 percent.

Here's the kicker: Amazingly, Stuttgart claims the new, larger car is lighter than the last 911. On top of that, the base 911's engine shrinks, from 3.6 to 3.4 liters, yet gains 5 hp and puts out the same 288 pound-feet of torque. Fuel economy is said to rise a bit, though EPA numbers haven't been released. All this without an efficiency-boosting turbocharger.

This is what makes Porsche special, and why its engineers are widely viewed as the best in the world — they specialize in surprises. Cars aren't supposed to get lighter when they grow. Engines aren't supposed to shrink and become more powerful. Heck, if you really get down to it, from a laws-of-physics standpoint, rear-engined cars aren't supposed to be a good idea, period.

My exposure to the new car was admittedly limited. I attended the 911's California launch and obtained a few hours of seat time. The models present were all Carrera S examples — the uprated, high-performance version of the standard 911 — with 3.8-liter, 400-hp engines and 20-inch wheels. The base Carrera produces 350 hp and rides on 19-inchers.

Similarly, each car we tested was equipped with a host of Porsche's optional computerized performance goodies: Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM, or electronically adjustable adaptive dampers), Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control (PDCC, or electronically decoupling anti-roll bars), and Porsche Torque Vectoring (PTV, essentially computer-controlled rear-wheel braking that helps the car turn). Because these were S models, they were also equipped with Porsche's active magnetorheological engine mounts, which (get this) limit engine motion when the suspension is loaded. They were first introduced on the 2010 Porsche 911 GT3, and they help keep the car's tail more in check when cornering.

There are other tech highlights. Electric power steering, a 911 first, is now standard. An available seven-speed manual transmission, an industry first. An intake-pulse-powered membrane in the rear passenger area that pipes engine sound into the cockpit. An available, cockpit-switchable baffled sport exhaust that goes from loud to LOUD with the push of a button. And Porsche's Doppelkupplung (PDK), its remarkably refined and almost mind-reading seven-speed, twin-clutch automatic transmission.

There is more, but I literally don't have room for it. Suffice it to say the new Porsche 911 is a technological tour de force, a tribute to the art of geekery used for the powers of good.

If this seems like a lot to process, it is. Thankfully, all that tech has been oriented toward driver involvement, not just outright velocity. It's used to make you look better, feel better, drive better. Like all Porsche sports cars, the 911 is a stimulant, a drug. It wakes you up, smacks you around, and convinces you that you are the single most important person on the pavement.

There is the sound, which rips across the landscape and echoes through trees like wildfire. It's a raspy, high-pitched, unstoppable howl. The gearboxes, both of which work flawlessly — the automatic shifts faster than you ever could, but it never grabs a gear wrong, always predicts what you want and never unsettles the car. The brakes — massive discs at each corner with the traditional glossy Porsche calipers, which you can have painted to match the car if you like — are relentless, with impossible fade resistance and the world's most progressive and feelsome pedal. The engine pulls like unfettered blazes, a docile, smooth, turbine. Everything is rewarding.

And then there's the suspension. This is the magic, blown-to-oblivion part. No 911 has ever been this friendly or approachable in a corner — and yet, no 911 has ever been so angry and effective. The traditional 911 Meet Your Maker cornering feeling is gone, as is the triple-digit wandering and constant need to babysit the front tires under load. With every 911 previous, if you added in too much throttle at the wrong time, the front end would wash. Not here. The rear tires stick, always and everywhere, unless you ask them to come loose — and then the car is predictable, easy, a balanced pal. Straight-line speed is completely drama-free.

There is skill required here, but unlike in the past, you are not bitten if you do not possess it. And all the while, you are going ever faster, the car more composed and together than many sports cars or exotics costing twice as much.

I could prattle on about the 911's flaws, but they are quibbles. For the record: The electric power steering loses some of the feedback and on-center magic of the previous 911's hydraulically assisted setup. The engineers claim this was done to aid high-speed stability and make the car feel less nervous, but it just kills a bit of the fun. The interior is cold and hypermodern, much like the cockpit of Porsche's own Panamera or Cayenne. Also, it's too early to tell, but there's a chance that, without the full-boat performance options, the base 911 may be nowhere near as good as the loaded S I tested.

The takeaway here is that, after decades of evolution, Stuttgart has essentially evolved its raw golden child into a polished car for everyman. The only sticking point is the price: a whopping $83,050 for the base 911 Carrera, and $97,350 for the Carrera S model I drove.

One piece of advice: If you have the means, pay it.

WIRED Reeks of history. Sounds amazing. Happy on the road or the track. Will take anything you — or the average Andretti or Vettel — can dish out, and beg for more.

TIRED Vast gap in price between potent S model and base Carrera. Factory options are laughably expensive — floormats cost only slightly less than a Manhattan apartment. Steering feel pales in comparison to that of previous 911s.

Photos courtesy of Porsche Cars North America, Inc.

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