Stoddard Porsche and Audi Willoughby

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Driving Impressions

Driving a Porsche 911 is a thrill, no matter the model. Its overall performance is extraordinary. All variants accelerate with the verve of a motorbike and turn or stop on a dime, all the while behaving in smooth, civilized fashion for the more mundane demands of daily motoring. They're also easy to drive. The Turbo is very easy to drive, probably the easiest to drive of all supercars, whether putting around the neighborhood or braking late and accelerating hard out of corners on a road racing circuit. The GT3 is a less forgiving of driver errors, but even it is easy to drive by race car standards.

These latest-generation Porsches feed information back to the driver just a little more clearly and react to commands a nanosecond sooner than the previous-generation (pre-2005) cars. They also retain the wash-and-wear quality that has made the 911 a relatively easy car to live with everyday.

The standard Carrera and Carrera 4 are powered by Porsche's familiar 3.6-liter, horizontally opposed six cylinder, otherwise known as the boxer engine for the way its pistons punch outward. It employs the latest materials technology, a race-car style dry sump lubrication system and a refined version of Porsche's VarioCam variable valve timing. Horsepower peaks at 325 at 6800 rpm, while peak torque is 273 pound-feet at 4250 rpm. Porsche claims 0-60 mph acceleration performance of 4.8 seconds with manual gearbox, 5.2 seconds with the Tiptronic. We easily managed 0-60 mph acceleration times under 4.5 seconds, measured with a portable, over-the-counter accelerometer. In any case, the standard Carrera is a very quick car.

Which transmission? The Tiptronic is easier to manage in the kind of stop-and-go traffic found in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta and other large cities. The Tiptronic actually gets slightly better fuel economy in this type of situation: Carrera with Tiptronic rates an EPA-estimated 20/26 mpg compared with 18/26 for the manual. We prefer the manual gearbox, however. It offers quicker acceleration performance, blazing from 0-60 mph in 4.8 seconds compared with the Tiptronic's very quick 5.2 seconds, and this advantage continues, getting to 100 mph a full second quicker, and to 124 mph in 17.5 seconds compared with the Tiptronic's 20.4 seconds. The real reason prefer the manual, though, is that it's so much fun to shift and so easy to shift. Blipping and downshifting in a Targa S we drove was absolutely wonderful; we just didn't want to stop. A manual gearbox is more fun on a track, should you have interest in that, and it's more fun on winding roads. Having said that, the Tiptronic is an excellent choice and a joyful companion. Hurley Haywood, who has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times in Porsches and the 24 Hours of Daytona five times in Porsches, loves the Tiptronic. So don't listen to us.

The Carrera S models get a bored out version of the same engine along with a slightly raised compression ratio for 355 hp at 6600 rpm and 295 pound-feet of torque at 4600 rpm. Gearing for Carrera and Carrera S is identical for both the manual and Tiptronic S transmissions. Fuel economy for both engines is identical. Bottom line is the Carrera S offers slightly quicker acceleration performance. For example, a Carrera achieves 0-60 mph in 4.8 seconds, 0-99 mph in 11.0 seconds, 0-124 mph in 17.5 seconds, compared with Carrera S times of 4.6 seconds, 10.7 seconds, 16.5 seconds. We drove a Targa S at Barber Motorsports Park and it sounded great and was a joy to drive.

Those figures only hint at the satisfaction a driver can find in the 911's engine, however. The real draw lies in its tractability. Slam the 911's gas pedal at any road or engine speed, and the response is immediate, not to mention enormous. Power is on tap in just about any situation. We wanted to floor it every time we tracked through a turn and let the engine wind to its 7300-rpm redline just to feel the acceleration

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