Porsche’s intention is to give you it all. Blistering speed, of course, but, just as important, daily usability, the comfort of a sheik’s casbah, and the best fuel efficiency possible in a 911 offering up to 560 horsepower. In cracking its lid and packing in even more horses, the car’s keister swells by yet another 1.1 inches from its predecessor. The 911 Turbo has always had hips you want to grab with both hands and squeeze, but now, from the back, the new Turbo looks like a Peter Paul Rubens scene in CinemaScope.
Porsche is compelled to turn up the wick to fend off interlopers in the $150,000-to-$200,000 sandbox where the Turbo now plays. There are AMGs, Aston Martins, and Audi R8s rattling around in this space, plus the forthcoming McLaren P13. Hence, both the base Turbo and the Turbo S are for the first time being launched simultaneously, for $149,250 and $182,050, respectively. The price difference basically pays for all the Turbo’s performance options including carbon-ceramic brakes, plus 40 horsepower, center-lock forged wheels, slightly different air intakes up front, and the all-important “S” badge.
Strapped with twin BorgWarner compressors using variable-vane geometry, originally a technology for spinning up turbos faster in diesels, the 3.8-liter flat-six encases new shorter-skirt pistons and forged connecting rods among the modifications needed to handle both 14.5 psi of whistling boost and a 9.8:1 compression ratio. If 520 horsepower isn’t enough, the Turbo S makes 560 on 17.4 psi, with a torque peak of 516 pound-feet arriving at just 2100 rpm. Both cars can squirt another 2.2 psi into their pots on temporary overboost.
With the one transmission available in all Turbos—the seven-speed dual-clutch PDK—locked into its optional launch control, the ETA for 60 mph should be 2.7 seconds in the S. Porsche encouraged us to launch the car as many times as we liked, and the perfectly repeatable violence of it is terrifying. If you don’t have your head against the backrest before detonation, you’ll feel it in the morning. More technology: A revised four-wheel-drive system switches from the base Carrera 4’s ball-ramp-activated front-axle coupling to a new liquid-cooled Haldex hydraulic device (both are electronically controlled). Engineers say the extra precision offered by hydraulic control allows for better tuning of the torque-vectoring feature.
An electronically controlled limited-slip rear differential combined with single-rear-wheel brake applications helps steer the car into corners. Rear-wheel steering, as in the new GT3, also sharpens the car’s reflexes, while its aerodynamic downforce automatically elevates at speed via a height- and angle-adjustable rear wing and a flexible three-section chin spoiler that drops down in two phases via air bladders. At low speed, the black lip stays retracted out of the scrape zone.
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