Longer, lower, wider, faster, more fuel efficient, and—amazingly—slightly lighter, according to the company, the new Porsche 911 Carrera is a better car in every way. Which means it’s less like a Porsche 911 than ever, because let’s face it, much of what made the model an icon have been its eccentricities.Up until the late 1990s, mastering a 911 was lion tamer’s work. The 996 and 997 generations greatly improved drivability, and the lion has been thoroughly tamed with the 2012 redesign. Anybody who draws breath and has the dough (China is rapidly filling up with candidates) can safely cuddle up with this cushy kitty. The wheelbase is stretched, the front track is wider, and the rear-biased weight split is claimed to be closer to equalization—all of which promotes on-road stability and reduces the midcorner bounding and corner-exit steering washout that make older 911s so, er, thrilling. The electronic suspension devices and the traction-control systems are more capable, making the steering response even snappier and the car more eager to go where you point it.Carrer-amera?Granted, the only version provided for our drive was a 3.8-liter Carrera S with the optional Sport Chrono package. So equipped, it includes Porsche’s dynamic engine mounts, which we’ve often praised for helping settle the car down over pitching pavement. All comments should thus be so flagged. But whatever version you drive, the car feels big. When did the 911 get to be the same length as an Audi A6? It’s not actually that large, but it seems it. Dare we call it the Carrer-amera?
Yes, we dare. The influence of the Panamera is obvious once you crack open the doors and see that long ski slope of a center console studded with buttons. Porsches used to have nothing but a shifter and air between the seats, which emphasized the fact that the oily bits were out back. Porsche design director Michael Mauer says the 911 is the source for all Porsche brand styling, but in this case, it looks as though the company’s big, front-engined limo—and strategic cost-saving component sharing—had a say.
By the way, for decades Porsche has given all its projects an internal number starting with “9,” and it’s now running out of numbers. We were told at the lavish international launch in Santa Barbara, California—where a blue-sky budget included grinding and resurfacing an old weather-beaten airport apron to serve as an autocross course—that the new 911’s 991 project code was selected simply because it was still available. In the future, Porsche plans to start mixing in letters to get codes like 9A1, the designation for the new family of direct-injection boxer engines.
Haven’t We Seen You Before? Of Course We Have
Meanwhile, the rest of the new Carrera looks every inch a 911, if for no other reason than customers expect it to be so. The differences live in the details: the roof and the front fender humps—the latter capped by domed headlamps—are lower and give the car a wider, more-limpet-like road stance. The red-dagger taillamps live under a furrowed brow running around the back; Mauer says this look eventually will migrate to all Porsches.
Using the driver’s hip point as a reference for the change in wheelbase, the front axle moves forward by 1.2 inches, and the rear moves aft by just under three. The overhangs have been reduced, so the body is 2.2 inches longer overall. The windshield center point moves about three inches forward, but the glass has more curve to it and wraps around to A-pillars that have moved hardly at all.
Nothing carries over from the 997’s body shell, which employed far less aluminum in its construction. In contrast, the lighter material comprises about 45 percent of the new car’s shell, including the floor, roof, doors, and all structural and exterior sheetmetal forward of the windshield. Steel is limited mainly to the piece that forms the rear quarter-panels and door frames. It is a complex single part that requires seven separate stampings and that Porsche’s stamping supplier said was too deeply curved to form from aluminum. We’re estimating curb weights will be about 3250 pounds for the Carrera and 3350 for Carrera S, or basically the same as before. (For its part, Porsche says the S weighs about 10 fewer pounds.)
This is the enviro 911, the press kit for which touts not the new power figures (350 hp for the Carrera and 400 hp for the S, increases of 5 and 15) but the potential fuel saving from each engine technology. An idle stop/start system that buyers can disable if they want saves up to 1.5 mpg, for example. An alternator that charges at a higher rate on deceleration: 0.4 mpg. A coast-down function that, in cars equipped with the PDK twin-clutch gearbox, automatically decouples the engine in some deceleration scenarios and lets it drop to idle could save a maximum of 2.5 mpg. The final EPA window-sticker numbers won’t be released until early December, but city and highway mileage will probably rise 1 to 2 mpg for the Carrera and Carrera S depending on the transmission.
Porsche had no base Carreras on hand with the direct-injection 3.4-liter flat-six—a de-stroked version of the current 3.6-liter. The S’s 3.8-liter is changed only in details mainly having to do with the injectors, intake manifold, and exhaust. All the fancy sand-cast cylinder heads and the intake manifolds with individual throttle butterflies for each cylinder—features of the outgoing GTS—are left off at the 991’s launch, perhaps to be reintroduced later as optional Power Pack upgrades.
Although the point at which peak torque becomes available rises in both the 3.4 and 3.8 by 1200 rpm, to 5600, the 3.8 we sampled behaves about the same as before in both performance and sound. The latter, incidentally, is augmented by a new “Sound Symposer” somewhat similar to the sound tube used in the current BMW Z4. An acoustic tube runs from the intake pipe to the rear parcel shelf and has a simple membrane in it that vibrates in concert with intake pulses. The membrane merely amplifies these pulses for the cabin, and a valve in the intake activates the Symposer when you push the standard Sport button. It does indeed wake up the engine’s voice, while the new Carrera’s improved sound insulation more effectively dampens road noise.
The pair of seven-speed transmissions, manual and dual-clutch PDK, share internal components and basic dimensions but have different cases and different ratios on third (lower on PDK) and seventh (taller on PDK). The seven-speed manual shift pattern is that of a six-speed but with the seventh forward gear up and to the right; it is of no use beyond its function as a tall, fuel-saving ratio for highway cruising. The gates are very tightly spaced way over there, so Porsche blocks out seventh electronically unless you first select fifth or sixth. People will reflexively complain about electro-nanny tyranny, and some forum poster somewhere will surely tell you how to disable the lockout, but that would be silly.
That’s because, unlike GM’s one-to-four skip-shift, which exists solely to help the car’s fuel-economy test numbers, this lockout is for driver convenience. Porsche found in testing that it was far too easy to accidentally select seventh when you’re intending to upshift into fifth. As soon as you get fifth, the lockout deactivates. After probing its function a few times, we ceased to notice it. The Carrera S still accelerates up hills in seventh, but the base Carrera probably won’t do so much quicker than water.
Say “Hello” to Electric Steering
Notable chassis changes include Porsche’s first use of electric power steering, plus an electro-hydraulic anti-roll system that varies the front and rear anti-roll-bar rates by using small, expandable cylinders as linkages between the roll bars and the hubs. Go through a right bend, and the left cylinders expand to increase the roll stiffness. The goal is to make the steering quicker by cutting the amount of slump to the outside before the car changes direction. The Carrera still does roll a bit, which preserves a natural feel.
There’s also a “torque-vectoring” system—optional on Carrera models, standard on the S—that activates the inside rear brake to help yaw the car into corners for more reactive turn-in. It works in concert with a locking differential, which is mechanical on manual models and electronic with PDK. The S we drove around the autocross course has a new, pronounced lift-throttle turn-in to the chassis that gets it pointed into the apex better.
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The electric steering, adopted because it saves fuel over an engine-driven hydraulic pump, is more controversial. Usually such systems deaden the feel compared to hydraulic units. Porsche says its system is carefully designed to filter out everything except “useful” information, which it defines as cornering forces and pitching surfaces, but not bump-shocks and jiggling from rough surfaces. The 911 purists will complain, of course, because some of the life has been squeezed out. This includes the weird on-center slackness and the sudden wheel spasms that occur when older Carreras tromp over rough patches, especially while the front axle is lightly loaded under acceleration and the front tires buck at will.
Porsche’s attitude is that it is merely cleaning up flaws with the new car, but a lot of people like the character imparted by the old flaws. The 991’s wheel drives a smooth, precise rack that delivers instant helm response and a solid connection to the road, if not every single whisper of information that could possibly be transmitted. With this quick experience, it seems good, especially if you’re getting older. We’ll need to wait and see if we feel the same after longer exposure.
Dealerships will open their doors to 991 buyers in the U.S. on February 4, with base prices set at $83,050 for the base 350-hp Carrera and $97,350 for the 400-hp Carrera S. That’s a jump, but navigation is now standard across the board, so the comparable price rise is just over 1 percent. Porsche is only showing the rear-drive coupes as yet, but there were more than 20 variants of the previous 997-gen 911. And with all-wheel-drive, Turbos, convertibles, Speedsters, and GT-whatevers still coming down the pike, expect more news soon.
Meanwhile, the new Carrera is more comfortable and transits quickly, more securely, and with less of the white-knuckle body heaving and tail twitching that has long defined the 911’s unique character. Porschephiles may have been wondering at what point their beloved 911 ceases to be a 911 and becomes just a good sports car with an engine in the trunk. That day may have arrived. View Photo Gallery
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