07 February 2019, 19:00 / Auto

Porsche 911 Carrera S: Pure pleasure

The eighth generation of the 911 model leaves almost no intrigue: the iconic coupe drives even better than its ancestors Alexander Gubsky The powerful rear-wheel drive Porsche 911 Carrera S coupe remained on line even when entering 100-degree turns at speeds of 50–60 km/h / Porsche

The Porsche 911 is a unique car: a real sports car that you can drive with pleasure every day, whether you want - aggressively and quickly, constantly injecting adrenaline into your blood, or whether you want - relaxed and leisurely, enjoying the very fact of owning such a car. It’s no wonder that total sales of the expensive coupe, produced since 1963, have already exceeded the 1 million mark.

But every time a new generation of Porsche 911 comes out, I wonder: should I feel sorry for the designers of this brand or be happy for them? Because they have very limited space for creating the exterior of a new car: the wings must always be higher than the hood, the hood lid and the curve of the roof must have a recognizable shape, the false radiator grille cannot be large - and yet it is now the main identifier of almost every brand! That's why Porsche designers have to concentrate on the details.

The eighth-generation 911 (factory code 992) retains the same wheelbase as its predecessor, but the new coupe is wider and therefore looks more aggressive and powerful. In the design of the exterior and interior, the emphasis is on horizontal lines. A camera, sensors and sensors for driver assistance systems are hidden behind the narrow front grille. A solid LED strip of red running lights appeared at the rear.

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For the first time in history, the 911 received wheels of different diameters: 20-inch wheels at the front and 21 inches at the rear. This was done not only for the sake of design, but also to increase the stability of the car, the developers say. The body of the 911 is now 70% aluminum (in the previous generation it was less than 40%). However, Porsche claims that the use of winged metal is not an end in itself: aluminum was used only where it was more efficient than steel. The eighth generation turned out to be heavier than its predecessor, but the engine power also increased, so the weight/power ratio is in favor of the new product.

Flame motor

In 2015, a revolution occurred in the world of Porsche 911: the manufacturer completely abandoned naturally aspirated engines and began installing three-liter twin-turbocharged engines on the Carrera model with the factory index 991. The engines were designed with great upgrade potential, and four years later their second generation debuted in the 992 coupe. For the first time, Porsche engineers have used fast-acting piezo injectors that deliver five fuel injections per cycle, improving performance without increasing fuel pressure. Inlet valves of the combustion chambers with asymmetric stroke provide more efficient gasoline consumption. New, larger-capacity turbochargers are now mounted in a mirror-image arrangement (which increases performance), and the intercoolers are 14% larger and centrally located in the engine. As a result, the engine power (which retained the same displacement of 2981 cc) in the 911 Carrera S version increased from 420 to 450 hp. s., and torque – from 500 to 530 Nm.

Real versus virtual

The instrument panel of the new 911 retains the classic five dials for Porsche. In the center there is a large analog tachometer, on its sides there are two virtual displays, the images on which can be changed. Porsche designers did not completely abandon physical buttons: heated/ventilated seats can be turned on immediately after starting the engine (the start key, of course, to the left of the steering wheel), without waiting for the car’s multimedia system to be activated.

Seven generations of 911 Porsche

Over the 55 years of sports car production, the company has sold more than a million cars of this model.

My only complaint about the 911 is the multimedia - it looks outdated right from the start, and the 10-inch touchscreen on the center console doesn't help the situation. It is placed so that the steering wheel and the driver's hand block about a third of the image - a problem if a map with navigation is displayed on the display. The map can also be displayed on the instrument panel, but this is even worse - the steering wheel will block the image almost completely. And Porsche denies the idea of projection displays: in the entire model range of the company, only the Cayenne (a crossover shared with the Audi Q7, Bentley Bentayga, Lamborghini Urus and Volkswagen Touareg) has a projection of instrument readings onto the windshield.

The complaint regarding multimedia does not apply to audio systems (Bose with a power of 570 W or Burmester with a power of 855 W are available as an option). Dieter Burmester is no longer with us, but his work lives on, and the music in Porsche sounds just right! No wonder Burmester, the creator of expensive hi-end audio systems, liked to joke: “You buy my audio system from Porsche and get the car itself for free!”

Water is like drought

To demonstrate the advantages and versatility of the new coupe, the manufacturer chose Valencia. The same car had to be evaluated in urban conditions, on the mountain paths of the Cera Natural Park, on a wet track and on the 4-kilometer Circuit Ricardo Tormo race track.

My acquaintance with the new 911 began on a wet track, where it was proposed to test the new Wet Mode stabilization system. It is designed to make driving easier and safer in the rain: ultrasonic sensors in the front wheel arches detect noise from water splashes and the system prompts the driver to switch to “wet” mode, in which the settings of the aerodynamic elements, steering, brake and gas pedals change .

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The organizers installed a watering system along the small race track so that the asphalt always remained wet. And the powerful rear-wheel drive coupe remained on line, even when entering 100-degree turns at speeds of 50–60 km/h!

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However, apart from the installation of sensors and leaving out the marketing grandiosity, we are talking about the fact that the Germans have improved the Porsche Stability Management and Porsche Traction Management systems. For comparison, I did a few laps on a wet track in other modes - Normal, Sport and Sport Plus - and the stabilization systems still corrected my mistakes, they just intervened later and less overtly.

Tutorial for track riding

All test vehicles were equipped with the optional Sport Plus package. But I confess, I forgot to activate the stopwatch to time my lap at Circuit Ricardo Tormo. Journalists with experience in auto racing complained that they were not interested in the Valencian track, which is understandable - the flat track without relief was built for motorcycle racing. But you can improve your skills on it. And for this purpose – right before the start of sales of the 992 – the Germans developed an application for Porsche Track Precision smartphones. It contains maps of more than 200 racing tracks around the world (including in Russia). A Porsche buyer with the Sport Plus package can activate the application before entering the pit lane (it will not work on public roads), and after completing the track, the program will show the driver the entire path from the driver’s seat, pointing out errors in choosing speed, trajectory, braking and other things.

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Until the end of winter, the application runs in test mode, and we were shown a recording of Mark Webber: in one of the cars that we had, the nine-time Formula 1 stage winner completed a lap at Circuit Ricardo Tormo in 1:46. I was surprised that, judging by the recording, the famous racer never exceeded the 200 km/h mark - but on the main straight, according to the speedometer, I accelerated to 217 km/h. “Well, Webber still beat you in the corners,” my colleagues teased me.

Civil mode

In the afternoon it was time to test the Porsche 911 on public roads. It turned out that the vast majority of drivers in Valencia and its environs did not pay attention to the new coupe costing more than a hundred thousand euros (8 million rubles) - apparently, they simply did not distinguish it from the previous model. But on a motorway with a speed limit of 120 km/h, the new A8 was on my tail. At a speed of 180 km/h, not wanting to run into a large fine, I went to the right. And the Audi driver, having satisfied his ego, left the highway at the nearest exit.

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I admit, I have nothing new to add to the driving habits of the Porsche 911, which have already been described many times - the higher the speed, the better this car drives. At a speed of 140–150 km/h, wind noise begins to clearly appear in the cabin, but my colleague and I agreed that this is necessary: the driver of a sports car must understand at what real speed he is traveling, even without looking at the speedometer.

At the end of the test, having deviated from the route proposed by the organizers, we mistakenly drove into an industrial zone - with quite Russian holes in the asphalt. And here the 911 did not make a mistake: on wide tires, the sports car floated over the pits like it crossed the dry sea.

The experiment with different roads and in general went brilliantly: 360 journalists from all over the world took part in the two-week test program, and all of them, of course, tried to squeeze the maximum out of the 450-horsepower coupe. But not a single car allowed itself to lose traction and cause damage to itself or its passengers.

On the track, our 911 Carrera S covered 50 km at an average speed of 35 km/h, consuming 44.7 liters of gasoline per 100 km. Over 170 “civilian” kilometers at an average speed of 61 km/h, it spent 12.0 liters per hundred. Colleagues before us drove the same 170-kilometer route at an average speed of 43 km/h, consuming 14.7 liters.

Test drive organized by Porsche