The horsepower arms race seems to be ramping up, not settling down as we all admit things got a bit out of hand and it’s time to act like grownups. It was 17 years ago that I borrowed a 997-era Porsche 911 Turbo for a couple of days, lapping the south of England to show it off to friends and family. I couldn’t imagine any series production performance car could feel more violently accelerative than that, and nor could they.
Yet here we are. This is the latest version, the Turbo S based on the facelifted 992.2 model. Compared to the 997 I borrowed back in 2009 power is not just up, but up considerably – from 473 to 701bhp, or half as much again. For the first time there’s a hybrid component on a Turbo-badged 911, an 81bhp electric motor that drives through the PDK transmission, plus twin electrically boosted turbochargers. I’ll explain what that means in practice shortly, but you can probably work it out for yourself.
We’ve driven the latest 911 Turbo S already – you can read Andrew English’s review from the October launch event in Spain here. This was our first opportunity to drive the car in the UK and away from the carefully controlled conditions of a media launch, which turned out to be a very worthwhile exercise. In a forthcoming story we’ll investigate its performance quantitatively, explaining what exactly all that power and speed gives you on the public highway where limits, cameras, traffic and other road users, dreadful surfaces and all the rest of it are great levellers. This will be a qualitative appraisal, an assessment of the sensations and emotions. Does half as much power again make this car more enjoyable to drive in the real world than its somewhat distant predecessor?
