ALISTAIR WEAVER: For me, there are two types
of people who buy a 911 Turbo.
There's the super rich who just want the most expensive
of everything.
Personalized monogram, tick.
Leather-wrapped ashtray, tick, even if you don't smoke.
To be honest, they're likely to buy the cabriolet.
But then there's another group of people who
just want the ultimate tool.
At over $200,000, this Turbo S costs more than a McLaren 570S,
but it's so much more discreet.
For most passers-by, this is just another 911,
and Porsche's built over a million of those.
It doesn't even have the presence of a 911 GT3
or any of the other winged wonders
which tell the world you're a proper racing driver.
No, this is just a 640-horsepower machine.
To coin that old cliche, it's an everyday supercar.
Now if you're wondering why it's just me charting to a camera
and there's no arty patches of grass sort of whistling
in the wind as the car whizzes past,
well, that's because Edmunds has made the correct decision
to cancel all shoots involving more than one person.
So it's just me talking to you.
We do indeed live in strange times.
The shots that you can see are actually taken by Porsche
up the road in Monterrey, Northern California,
but we thought we'd include them because it looks nice
and really shows you what the car looks like.
So if the picture here looks out of sync with the picture there,
well, you know, get over it.
For now at least, every version of the current 911 codename 992
is turbocharged, even the entry-level Carrera.
But this is a Turbo with a capital T,
and it belongs to a special lineage.
The original 911 Turbo was launched at the Paris Auto Show
back in 1974, but it didn't arrive in the US until 1976
when it had the mighty figure of-- wait for it--
236 horsepower.
To be honest, in my opinion, it wasn't until the 996 Turbo
of 2000 that the Turbo was actually better
than the standard Carrera.
That 996 had 415 horsepower.
Now the standard Carrera S has more than that
today, so for the Turbo with a capital T,
Porsche had to make a big job, and they have,
to 640 horsepower.
They use a 3.8-liter version of the 3-liter six cylinder found
in the standard 911.
But with two bigger turbos, it now
generates 60 horsepower more than the outgoing 991 turbo
and 37 pound-feet more torque at 590.
Handling all that performance is an all-wheel-drive system
that's again been updated and an eight-speed flappy-paddle PDK
gearbox.
Now the Edmunds test track is rightly closed at the moment,
so we haven't had the opportunity
to independently verify Porsche's figures,
but we do know from experience that the Stuttgart boffins tend
to be pretty conservative.
So when they say it'll do 0 to 60 in 2.6 seconds, a quarter
mile in 10.5 at 205 miles an hour,
we do tend to believe them.
To be honest, we normally expect to beat Porsche's figures.
Now, in my career I've been lucky enough
to drive most supercars, quite a few race cars as well,
and on paper at least, there are few that are as quick as this.
But-- and it sounds strange to say--
it doesn't always feel it.
In a McLaren or something like an Audi R8 or even a GT3,
you have such a visceral experience.
It's so loud, so energetic that you're always
conscious that you're in something special.
But this is a little bit different.
Even with the $3,500 sports exhaust
that's fitted to this car and is switched on at the moment,
it's never noisy.
And because it doesn't rev so hard--
the rev line is 7,000 RPM instead of 9,000 like it is
in a GT3--
you're sort of driving on the torque
almost much like you would a diesel,
so it gathers speed almost by stealth.
You just get this sonorous cry and this giant wallop
of torque, and suddenly you're going a hell of a lot
faster than you ever realized.
It's sort of a different kind of performance, this,
but it still goes.
And the days are gone when turbocharging gave you
all this sort of lag and a poor throttle response.
Yes, it's not quite as whip crack is a GT3 is,
which is naturally aspirated, but it's still
pretty damn good.
The only thing I miss that you used to get
is that little "psst" when you lift off the throttle
and you get that waste gate that releases all the gases.
In this car it's electronically controlled,
and it's much more refined, and it's much more sensible,
but I miss that little kind of "pch, pch, pch"
that you used to get in turbos of old.
Maybe Porsche could kind of re-engineer it back in.
You could push a button and have all that joy reinstated.
There is a big elephant in the room with this car,
and it comes also from Weissach in the form of the Taycan Turbo
S. Now that car has 750 horsepower.
It hits 0 in 2.6 seconds, which is exactly the same
as Porsche claims of this.
And on the quarter mile, it's only 0.3 of a second behind.
Now the Taycan Turbo S is, of course,
electric, which makes it a very different proposition,
but it is cheaper, and it will seat four,
and it is just as fast.
A part of me says this car, high tech and magnificent
though it is, does feel like something from yesterday.
It's strange.
When I tested the Taycan, I kind of came to the conclusion
that I'd rather have a Taycan than a 911.
Then you came out here on a road like this
and you drive the 911 Turbo and your brain shifts again
and you think, well, actually, I'll
stick with the gasoline for a bit
and then switch to electric.
To be honest, it's a tough choice,
but there are plenty of owners in this price bracket
who maybe could afford both, and, yeah, that would suit me.
Taycan Turbo S for the week and for the family, 911 Turbo
for the weekend.
But then again, if I was buying a weekend car,
surely you'll have the GT3.
If only.
The only reason I'm torn between Taycan and 911
is although the Taycan is undeniably great to drive,
this is a different experience.
And I'm lucky enough to own the last of the air-cooled 911s,
the 993, and you can feel the lineage in this car.
And so much of that comes from where
the engine sits, the shape, the driving position,
and the basic sensations.
It still feels like a 911.
It still feels that, agility that almost unique experience.
The steering is-- it's terrific.
It's very pointy, but there's plenty of response
when you punch the power down with an aplomb
that something with this much horsepower
really shouldn't be capable of.
As you'd expect from a 911, there's
a little drive mode here on the steering wheel
which takes you from normal to sport to sport
plus, which is pretty much full.
That's the mode.
But what I like is that you've still
got a switch on the center console here.
So you can have the engine and the transmission and everything
else in nutty sporty mode but then [INAUDIBLE]
and the damping to give you a bit more compliance
on a road like this.
That's critical.
To be honest, most of the time, if you're pushing on,
you might be in sport plus but then soften the damping.
And there's also an individual mode
that allows you to set everything up yourself.
There is so much technology going on in this car.
There's active aerodynamics thanks to that rather
splendid rear wing and another little splitter
at the front that balances it all out.
There's rear-wheel steering.
There's carbon-ceramic brakes.
There's a super-sophisticated all-wheel-drive system
that can now throw more torque to the front than ever before.
There's the flappy-paddle gearbox.
There's electronic damping.
I could kind of go on and on, and all this tech is designed
to make something with so much inherent performance accessible
to people who don't have God-given ability, who--
dare I say it--
have more money than talent.
It's amazing, to be honest, just how much
kind of finesse and attention the detail this is.
It must be strange as an engineer because so much of it
will go, A, completely unnoticed by the average owner
and, B, completely unused in normal road conditions
like these.
At the end of the day, who cares that it develops 15% more
downforce than the last one?
It's almost engineering for engineering's sake,
but the geek in me loves that.
There's even something called a wet mode.
Now the traditional way of measuring rain in a car
is to use sensors on the windshield,
but Porsche wasn't happy with that
because that only tells you when it's raining,
not when it's wet on the road.
So they're using acoustic sensors in the wheel arches.
If they detect that it's been raining,
they'll change everything from the ABS, the stability control
to the aerodynamics, all to help the driver
and keep the car on the road.
Now that's commendable.
It's a fantastic safety feature, but consider this.
If you've just spent over $200,000 on a supercar
and you need acoustic sensors to tell you
that there's water on the road, then maybe you
should consider your life choices.
So what don't I like?
Well, this car is riding on the optional sports suspension.
It was about $1,500.
It lowers the whole car by 10 millimeter,
which is about 0.4 of an inch.
I haven't driven the car on the nonsport suspension,
but I have a bit of a hunch that this setup
works fine in Germany where the roads are terrific.
But here in the US, sometimes it just feels a bit overdone.
The whole thing is a little bit too aggressive, particularly
on the highway.
And I suspect when we come to drive it,
we might actually prefer the standard suspension, especially
the 911 Turbo.
A firm ride's fine for a GT3 because that's
the point of the car.
It's supposed to feel like a road racer,
but this is more of a grand tourer.
And to me at least, I'd prefer something
a bit more cossetting.
Two other things I didn't like-- well,
tire roar is a problem on the standard 992,
and it is again here in the Turbo.
Particularly on the highway, you get
so much drone from the rubber that it can become slightly
irritating after a while.
And the other thing is just the size of this car.
911s used to be super small, and that was always
part of their appeal.
But compared to my 993 version, this car
is now 6 and 1/2 inches wider.
Now Porsche say that's to improve stability,
and it means that you can fit bigger tires and blibbity,
blibbity, blah, blah, blah.
And all of that from an engineering perspective
is true, but when you're driving it on a road like this,
it now feels big.
You fill the width.
The reality is that, most of the time, this car
will exist as pretty much a normal 911.
That's kind of the point of the Turbo.
This interior's really, well, just
a posher version of the normal Carrera S. Pretty
much everything you see is wrapped in dead cow, which
is certainly going to offend the editor of this film, Johnny,
who's very much a dedicated vegan.
He won't even like my hoodie, to be honest.
Sorry, Johnny.
There are a few Turbo-specific details.
You get a nice little Turbo S script
on the center-mounter rev counter
and this kind of stripy stitching, which harks back
to the original 930 Turbo.
Kind of like that.
There's also a bit more kit for your money.
These electric sports seats are some
of the finest that my derriere has ever sat on,
and it's great that you get the Bose sound system as standard
because the one in the normal 911 is,
to be honest, pretty rubbish.
So what don't I like?
Well, to be honest, criticism is the same
as they were for the Carrera S. I still
don't like this touchscreen infotainment system.
It's a bit too fiddly for my taste,
particularly when you're on the move.
You're always pushing the wrong function.
And I still don't like this fiddly little gear stick.
Oh, and one other thing.
My water bottle doesn't fit in the cup holder.
#FirstWorldProblems.
This 911 Turbo also isn't as practical as the Taycan, which
seats four and has more trunk capacity.
But compared with pretty much any other supercar,
it's still a really practical everyday proposition.
The rear seats are just about big enough for children,
and there's a decent trunk in the front, which has swallowed
all my gear today.
So objectively, is this twice as good a car
as a standard Carrera?
Well, the answer to that is obviously no.
But given that the average Turbo buyer
has an annual income in excess of a million dollars,
maybe thinking about things in conventional terms
isn't appropriate.
The thing about the Turbo S is the ultimate everyday 911
for those who can afford one.
If it was me, I'd choose a Turbo S in silver
with a black interior.
Nice and subtle, nice and discreet, nice and demure.
I'd slip through the crowd unnoticed, safe
in the knowledge that my supercar, in terms
of pure performance in just about every condition,
is untouchable.