[MUSIC PLAYING]
CARLOS LAGO: You may not believe it,
but you are looking at the next generation Porsche 911.
Yes, the 911 is in its eighth generation,
though you have to pay careful attention to the exterior
details to notice it.
We're starting with the back of the 911
because the fascias represent the biggest changes.
This wide brake light runs across the entire length
of the rear, and actually looks pretty good in person, too.
And now, the exhaust pipes are integrated into the bottom end
of the rear fascia.
It's a nice look that accentuates
the extra width of this car.
Working our way up to the middle,
rear wheels are now up to 21 inches in diameter.
And they're actually staggered-- the front wheels
are 20 inches in diameter.
Key difference, door handles.
Now, they're flush with the car until you unlock it,
then they pop out.
Width is a key difference with the next generation 911.
You need about 1.7 inches to measure the difference.
That's because the new gen 911, there's only one width in body
so far.
Previous 911s had a narrow body or a wide body.
This is all wide body.
As we get up to the front, you notice the difference
in the fascias.
A little bit more subtle compared to the rear end,
but that pretty much rounds out the most dramatic exterior
differences.
When it comes to length and height,
you need less than the first inch of ruler
to measure the differences.
But again, Porsche is known for careful evolution.
The interior is a bit more dramatic.
That's what we'll check out next.
The interior of 992 represents easily, the biggest change
over the previous generation.
It's still very mindful of the history
of the 911 in a lot of key areas,
but looks thoroughly modern throughout.
You still have the ignition on the left of the steering wheel.
There is no longer a key, it's all keyless ignition.
Although you do have to use the key to unlock the door
unless you get the optional proximity entry.
But you grab this ignition switch
on the left of the steering wheel, turn the car on.
Very straightforward.
But that ignition being to the left
the steering wheel has been a 911
hallmark since the beginning.
The shifter is the most interesting right here.
It looks like a beard shaver or a beard trimmer.
But it works.
For a couple of times now, I've tried
to grab it like I'm grabbing a normal shifter,
and it's going to take a while it used to just being
able to tap it to enter gears.
It works.
You have a button for park, a button for manual.
Press forward for reverse, pull back for drive.
And there's a D tent that makes it easy to select
a drive or the gear itself.
You push hard, you get to neutral.
If you push harder, you end up in reverse.
So that makes sense.
It will just take a while to get used to the operation that
will just come with ownership.
Since the dawn of Porsches, I've always
had five gauges, centrally mounted tach
and then auxiliary gauges off to the side.
As years have gone on, particularly
with the last generation, Porsche
introduced a digital gauge on the right.
And that was a nice multifunction gauge
that maintained sort of the Porsche look
and feel in regard to gauge cluster.
This generation, they've gone mostly digital.
It's an interesting look.
I have to say that the way I have my steering wheel set
right now, the rim totally blocks the two outside gauges,
so that's not so great.
But considering I can see important things like speed,
tach, temperature, and that's it.
Everything else is non-essential.
I can always turn my head to see the fuel level and so on.
The tach in the center is analog, and it looks beautiful.
It looks like a watch face.
The font, the style, the way the needle floats.
I think they're doing some control over a needle
to make it move very smoothly.
It's just gorgeous.
The steering wheel very traditional.
There's more hollow parts of it, so it kind of
has this milled looking thing to it, although a lot of it's
just plastic.
So that milled looking thing doesn't really stand up
when you start poking things.
Operation is very simple.
As we've seen with the recent Porsche models,
there's this dial on the bottom right here
that allows you to change drive modes.
If so optionned, you get more drive modes.
There's a button the center that gives you a sport response.
And That gives you the most aggressive drive mode
for something like, 20 seconds.
Moving on to the instrument panel in the center here,
it's attractive except for the use
of piano black finish, which you can already tell
is kind of smudgy.
And that just happens over time.
The aluminum look stuff here looks really good.
And you see the addition of a cup holder.
Cup holder is big news and 911s, because traditionally,
cup holders 911s have always looked really elegant but not
worked so great.
They've always been ahead of the passenger, and you press them,
and they flip out in this really neat looking fashion.
They don't really hold your drink that well.
And because they sat in front of the vents,
you would either cool off your hot drink
or heat up your cold drink, and that was never optimal.
Now the entertainment screen, it's a 10.9 inch screen.
That's the same one that you get in basically all
the new modern Porsches--
Macan, Panamera, Cayenne, and so on and so forth.
It looks really good.
I need to spend more time with it to see if I like it.
Panamera was kind of iffy on, but in terms of look and feel,
it looks nice, it feels nice.
Apple CarPlay is standard.
There is no Android Auto.
Porsche says they're still in contract negotiations
with Google.
The car is ready for it, and I hope
they can iron out those negotiations, and get it.
Because as an Android user myself, that would be terrific.
Underneath the entertainment display,
you have five physical buttons.
They look really good.
And you could tell there's been an effort
here to reduce the amount of buttons
throughout the interior.
And that generally is good, so long
as you reduce it in the right way,
and keep the essential buttons and get rid
of the nonessential buttons.
Previous 911s and Porsches in general
had this big sea of buttons, and that
was really great once you got used to it, because you could
say, for example, I want the loud exhaust on, and sport mode
off.
And then you know, stop start off, and so on.
They've reduced the configurations,
and I guess you'd have to play with
to make sure you get the car outfit to the way you
want to drive it.
So that's going to be dependent on options
and how you like to drive cars.
It's really going to be a matter of personal taste,
whether you like it or not.
On whole though, this interior is really good looking, largely
functional, and it's easily the biggest change
in this generation of 911.
And probably one of the more pleasing ones to look at.
Still looks like a 911, still drives like a 911,
and its interior looks really nice, too.
OK, first time behind the wheel of the 2020 Porsche Carrera S.
I think the best way to figure out
how it's going to drive is to engage launch control,
what do you say?
That works.
That feels good.
Not much appears to be different about the new 911
from the outside.
Inside, it's a bit more dramatic of a change.
But right now, we're going to talk about the driving
experience, and what it feels like from behind the wheel.
Very traditional 911 driving experience.
Wide view out the windshield.
Center-mounted tach reads very cleanly.
Nice-sized steering wheel, good grips for the hands.
The ride quality feels smooth, even
though this is a sports car.
That kind of gets back to one of the 911's greatest traits--
is that it really balances daily driveability
and sports car-like athleticism.
And Porsche has been very adamant about how they've
tried to extend both ends of that envelope
for this next generation 911.
It's quicker, it's more powerful, more tire on it.
It should be faster around any racetrack.
But there's a lot of technology meant
to enhance the day to day livability of this car as well.
For example, the adaptive suspension,
what Porsche calls PASM, has a wider envelope of usability.
So should be softer around town, but also, provide really
good control when you engage sport plus
and start really hauling.
The transmission is now an 8 speed dual clutch automatic,
PDK in Porsche speak.
That extra gear last year was a seven speed PDK.
That extra gear gives you an additional overdrive
on the freeway, allows the wider range of gear ratios.
So you get quicker acceleration, and lower gears, and more fuel
efficiency in higher gears.
That transmission also comes with extra weight.
This gained about 160 pounds, model versus model
versus last generation.
And a lot of that has to do with what's in the transmission.
No, that's not just a super heavy 8th gear.
There is structure in that transmission and capabilities
when that transmission that are meant
to support an electric motor, because this 911
will likely be a hybrid in the future at some point.
You can also expect a couple other things,
like a manual transmission, which
is not what will be available with the 911 initially.
You only get 8 speed dual clutch automatic at first.
But you can expect a manual I believe, next year
with the base model Carrera.
This is a Carrera S, meaning it has the more powerful version.
It's the second rung up the ladder of the 911 model line.
Attributes and traits that we've always liked from 911s
are still here, especially the way that twin turbo flat 6
sounds.
Makes a bit more power than last generation, upwards of 30
horsepower and like, 30 pound feet of torque or so.
You might not notice the difference
unless you drove the two cars back to back,
but this engine still feels responsive,
still sounds good, which is a nice trait
for a turbo charged engine.
It also doesn't run out of steam as you get higher
in the engine's power band, and that
can be an issue with a lot of modern high end performance
turbo charged engines.
That still runs pretty strong to red line.
That feels good.
Solid mid-range quick shifts, and all those
attributes that again, we love from the 911.
Yep, that's good.
Nothing's been lost in the change from 911 to 912,
which is the name of these generations.
It's still tractable acceleration,
it's still pleasing to drive.
Does all that those things really good.
I have a nice feeling from this car on this first experience
with it.
So it'll be interesting to see how this 992
generation develops over time, but if this
is the first example, it looks like it'll be very strong.
I think if you are curious if you're
debating between a last gen car and this, to wait for this,
it's a tough decision to make, because this is just as
capable, if not more capable than the S's from past,
but that's going to be a tough place to live.
Would you get a last Gen 911, knowing that you could probably
get one for less money, but knowing
that you have more of a model variety to choose from,
or should you wait for this one to come out?
That be the real test.
Either way, we're looking forward
to getting a 911 back in the states
so we can run it through a normal battery of tests,
and run it on our road loop, and see how it stacks up.
But this initial impression is very good.
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