Driving Report Porsche 911 Carrera S: Farewell Manual Transmission

Porsche continues to work on the 911 family: the Carrera S gets a facelift and enters its second half as the 992.2. As befits a sports car, with a superlative.

Porsche once again demonstrates a sense of family with the 911. Not that the Swabians are thinking of children and cones in this model series. The love doesn't go that far after all. But they are looking after their own ranks and bringing their model family up to date. After starting last year with the Carrera, the first hybridized GTS and the GT3, it is now the turn of the Carrera S. Just in time for the start of the car spring, it too is moving to the 992.2 generation and is available in dealerships with a fresh facelift for just under 155,000 euros (approx. 167,470 USD) as a coupé or 169,000 (approx. 182,364 USD) euros as a convertible.

As befits a sports car undergoing a makeover, the primary focus is on more power. More important than the retouching of the aprons and headlights are the new turbos and the new intercooler for the three-liter boxer, which they have already ennobled to iconic status in Zuffenhausen. Together with a bit of fine-tuning to the control system and a few new lines of software, the six-cylinder engine's output increases from 450 to 480 hp and thus reaches the level of the previous GTS.

The Swabians have not only closed the gap between the 394 hp of the base model and the 541 hp of the new GTS, but have also given the newcomer a superlative: the revised engine shortens the sprint time to 3.3 seconds and makes the 308 km/h (191 mph) derivative the "most powerful and dynamic Carrera S of all time" - at least until there is a completely new edition in three or four years' time. And by the way: the facelift also makes the powerhouse a little more economical (10.3 liters WLTP), so that the guilty conscience for the gain in pleasure is kept within narrow limits.

Not only engine tuning is fun

But Porsche wouldn't be Porsche if the Swabians left it at engine tuning. They also tweak a few other things for fun on the road and on the track.

• For example, brakes with red glowing calipers and, above all, more bite.

• With torque vectoring (not available in the base model),

• and a sports suspension with one centimeter less ground clearance,

• and an optional ceramic brake.

And to ensure that everyone recognizes the athlete as such, the boxer roars through a sports exhaust.

The result is a decidedly engaging character that makes the driver an accomplice from the very first few meters and raises the pulse even higher with every bend. Driving just to get there is hardly possible in this 911. You grip the steering wheel with commitment, brake later, accelerate earlier and let your feet fly over the pedals - until your hand on the center tunnel eventually reaches into the void in disappointment. After all, the manual gearbox is history with the facelift and instead of a real selector lever, a small stub sticks out of the tidy console for the automatic transmission.

Gallery

Gallery with 5 images

You do need a very sensitive popometer to pick out the differences to the predecessor. And because even the basic 911 is not exactly underpowered, clever calculators ask themselves whether the jump in performance and the S in the abbreviation are really worth a price jump of 26,000 euros (approx. 28,100 USD) compared to the 911 Carrera. But in a sports car, psychology plays at least as big a role as physics. This 911 flatters the ego: because if you buy the S, you can prove to everyone that you can afford a little more performance.