Have a FaceBook, Twitter, or other social networking account?

Link them to your fanatic account!

Add An Account

TAKE ME TO...
New Models
DRIVEN: 2012 Porsche 911 Carrera
Newest rear-engine sports coupe brings forward the essence of the original, only much better with greater performance and superb technology.
Nelson Ireson  | http://motorauthority.com  |  Posted November 14, 2011   Santa Barbara,CA
The 2012 Porsche 911 grows longer and lighter with more power in both the Carrera and Carrera S versions. (Photo: The Motor Authority)
You could natter on endlessly about how the 2012 Porsche 911 is or isn't like the 911s of yore, but after the gin has run dry and the first rays of sunlight are glinting off the ocean, you'd be no closer to understanding what the latest 911, code-named 991, really is.

Instead, it's far more informative to approach the 2012 911 as its own entity. Why? Because, simply put, it's a brilliant car, not in just one aspect but several. Driving to work? Take the 911. Driving the canyons? Take the 911. Hitting the track? Take the 911. Picking up the kids? Well, they'd better be short-legged.

The new 911 has athletic haunches unmarred by huge tail lights, instead going with thin and modern lights that are still plenty bright. (Photo: Porsche)
There are many subtle changes and a few not so subtle for the newest car to wear the 911 badge. It's longer (by 100 mm), more powerful (by 5 or 15 horsepower in Carrera and Carrera S trims, respectively), lighter (by 88 or more pounds) and on the inside, much more like the rest of the Porsche range than its predecessor. There's even a seven-speed manual gearbox to match the tweaked seven-speed PDK automatic.

The real story with the 991 is how well it drives. That’s what all 911s are really about, and it's clearly what this car was about from the earliest stages of design.

We just spent a day with the 991 (and its predecessors) at the global launch event in Santa Barbara, Calif., courtesy of Porsche. After thrashing the car on a high-speed autocross course and throughout the surrounding hill country, we feel like we've come to know the car's essential character, and it's at once familiar and fresh. A worthy upgrade to the 911 legacy.

In a nutshell, the 911 is an agile, relatively light, powerful and easily-placed sports car. It's shockingly quick in Carrera S trim with the PDK transmission, thanks in part to the easy-as-pie launch control, and the Porsche Torque Vectoring, Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control, and even traction control have such high limits that they'll never interfere with good driving, though they do make it essentially impossible to drift. It's just about exactly what you'd expect and want from a 911.

The 911 sheds more than 80 pounds compared with the last model due to greater use of lightweight materials. (Photo: Porsche)
Then there’s the seven-legged elephant in the cockpit: the manual transmission. Based on the PDK's fundamentals, the seven-speed manual has a slightly shorter ratio for third and a longer seventh, but it's otherwise almost identical. At first, it's weird driving a car with so many gates, but once you find a nice, rhythmic section of road, you realize it drives just like any other six-speed box. The seventh gear only comes into play on the highway.

Shift into seventh and it's clear why Porsche chose to add it. Engine revs drop to near-silence, fuel economy picks up, and there's still enough torque left over to power up hills without the need for a downshift.

The PDK has the same number of gears and for anything but tight autocross-style work, it's the better choice. Lightning-quick, neck-snapping gear changes in Sport Plus mode meld with silky shifts when cruising. Grab the paddles yourself for a healthy dose of engaging fun or let it do the work for you; it's surprisingly adept at figuring out how to act based on your inputs.

In either case, one of the most notable differences from the previous 911 is the quickness with which the engine revs, on both the Carrera and the S. It makes the car easy to rev-match on your own (with the manual) and it makes the computer's rev-matching almost instantaneous.

Note that the 2012 911 now features electromechanical power steering. For a car that is considered by many to be the benchmark for sports-car steering feel, going to electric-assist power steering is a risky bet at best; the Internet is brimming with rants against the vague and vicious vagaries of the technology.

Fortunately, the 991 avoids most of the electrical steering pitfalls, though it doesn't avoid all of them. On the whole, feel is very good, for electromechanical steering. Compared with a typical electric solution, the 2012 911's steering is in an entirely different class. Compared with truly top-flight hydraulic steering, however, it leaves some on the table.

Saving fuel by not powering the steering pump when traveling straight is a great idea until you turn the wheel, when you're met with a tiny lag and surge of assist that creates what effectively feels like a notch at the 12 o'clock position. There's even a tiny bit of tolerance for steering angle before the electric assist kicks in, making for a noticeably different feel just off-center.

To compound the matter, Porsche offers an optional low-speed assist treatment that lightens steering even further at very low (parking-lot) speeds to make maneuvering easier. While I didn't see any reason to opt for the extra boost, I can see how some people might like it.
Page 1 of 3
Prev
123
Next
nelson_ireson's avatar

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nelson Ireson

MORE BY THIS AUTHOR
Advertising | Jobs | Feedback | FAQ | Terms of Use | NEW Privacy Policy | Ad Choices | Site Map
Fox Sports | FUEL TV | FX Network | National Geographic | IGN | AskMen
The Motor Sports Authority, SPEED and associated logos are registered trademarks of Speed Channel Inc.
All Rights Reserved © Speed Channel, Inc. 2012

All external links will open in a new browser window. SPEED.com does not endorse external sites.