PORSCHE 993 Bi TURBO 4
The PORSCHE 993 Bi TURBO 4
And here's the corner; clean, fast and beckoning. Good visibility, good surface, tight enough to test the handling. Shift down to third on the approach, turn in and aim for the apex with the throttle flat. The nose locks onto line and the power pours on, the full 408. All four Bridgestones seem welded to the tarmac and the Porsche is in a pure neutral stance as the engine shoves it through the bend. No understeer, no oversteer, just grip.
The lateral g-force takes hold of the weighty camera bag sitting on the rear seat. It drifts an inch, nudges the transmission tunnel and slowly upends itself. There's a light but distracting crashing noise as it flips 180 C, spilling filters and film canisters everywhere, then a thump as it hits the far window. As the road straightens, it flops back down onto the rear seat.
Photographer Peter Robain laughs nervously. I'm astonished.
Traditionally, the Turbo has been the fastest and most frightening of the 911 family, a car whose full potential only the most skilled could exploit. The delicate balance of the 911 is at your complete command with the responsive, normally-aspirated 3.6-litre, but with an all-or-nothing turbo, it's a scary ride. This, however, is a 911 Turbo like no other before.
There are two very good reasons for this. Firstly, it's based on the current four-wheel drive Carrera 4, the best-handling 911 yet made. Secondly, it has two turbochargers, giving much better throttle response. The flat-six develops monumental power but it also delivers skipfuls of torque - over 3001b ft from just 2500rpm rising to almost 4001b ft at 4500rpm. Sounds like a bargain-priced 959 to me, though £92,000 looks expensive compared with the £83,000 F355. The Ferrari is three mph faster than the Porsche (top speed 'only' 180mph) but a couple of tenths slower off the line, the Turbo thumping to 60mph in less than 4.5secs.
Subtle though the body changes are, there's a clearly defined sense of purpose about the Turbo's stance. The lower edges of the front and rear bumper aprons are puckered, the sills are flared and there's the melted cheese' rear spoiler. All are set off to a tee by the lightweight l8in alloys, which have hollow spokes. The Turbo looks lower, bigger and hungrier, though dimensionally it's no different from the Carrera, apart from the wider hips cloaking the larger rear tyres. These are unbelievably squat Bridgestone SO-i tyres, 285/30 (yes, 30) section, while up front they're 225/40s which share the same unusual tread pattern; long strips of tread fan out from the centre of the tyre, which is said to be good for preventing aquaplaning. These large blocks are more stable than small ones in the dry, so there's excellent dry grip, too.
I can vouch for their effectiveness in the dry. So can Robain, who reckons no other car has managed to empty his camera bag (his stomach, yes). In the couple of hundred fast miles we drove, the Bridgestones squealed only once, and that may actually have been Robain, when his expensive filters tumbled.
The Carrera 4 chassis is virtually foolproof. This we know. Beefing up the transmission to make it turboproof, the starting point was the six-speed gearbox. Tougher, double-cone synchomeshes are used on first and second gear, and there's a lighter clutch action than before. It's a doddle to purr cleanly away from rest, and the shift now seems to have gained a little welcome weight and silkiness. Try an all-out start - go on, you've been dying to - and you'll roar away like a Harrier on elastic. Sidestep the clutch at 4000rpm and the boost simply doesn't let up as the rear tyres snatch at the tarmac.
The engine itself is quieter than the naturally-aspirated Carrera unit. The longer inlet tracts of the turbos mute the induction roar, and the flat-six is encased by the plumbing of the twin KKK turbos and their large intercoolers. Some of the old rumble still filters through, but when the boost is up, it's almost drowned by the sound of huge quantities of air being funnelled because he's sure he would be tempted to drive it flat-out everywhere and that would be just too much. He relates some impossib-ly short journey lime and I ask, 'Yes, but what's it like in the wet?' He shrugs: 'Much the same. It's an incredible car.'
Even hacking through five or six miles of second and third gear switchbacks, the engine is never once caught off boost. Constantly winding the excellent power steering from left to right, it's always ready with a slug of power to settle the car into the camber and spit it out onto the next short straight. traditional front wheel waving is an option, though the Turbo never seems to loosen its grip on the road. It feels all together, all of the time.
That front-end fidget is nothing to worry about, either After a while, you realise it doesn't actually affect straight-line stability. On an arrow-straight road like the one we found, I don't doubt you could see 300kp/h (186mph) on the speedo without much fuss. Don't doubt it at all.
Walter is, of course, right. The abilities of the Turbo are decisively beyond those of almost any other car you're likely to encounter. Although wider than the Carrera, it's still a small car, a compact supercar which allows even the modestly skilled to access all supercar areas - acceleration, cornering and braking g-forces to rival a fairground ride. That requires a large degree of restraint on the part of the driver, and great foresight and planning when using the Turbo's extraordinary performance.
Same scary ride as ever, then. Just a different kind of scary.
A more than competent all rounder, the 993 Turbo is a truly user-friendly car.
Don't dismiss the current all-drive 993 Turbo as just another well sorted car that behaves itself when you push it hard. That's true of course, and a fabulous achievement when you consider the Turbo's terrific performance. But it undersells the car.
Indeed, it's hard to believe that the latest Turbo is in any way related to its wild and worrying, lag-prone Seventies forbear. Virtually every mile in the old 911 Turbo was white knuckled. How different now: more speed, more response, more thrills, more of everything - except turbo lag and prematurely white hairs. This is one confidence-inspiring super-car, while it is undeniably pleasing to be seen in such a superior piece of kit, the real pleasure undoubtedly lies in driving it.
The raison d'etre of most four-wheel-drive cars is to improve traction on slippery surfaces, but with the Turbo, it's a dry-road boon as well, helping to maintain a feeling of natural balance during hard cornering. Under such conditions it has an amazing ability to put that truly massive, tireless torque to good use.
Although no excessive physical effort is required at the wheel, the Turbo's steering feels slightly heavier than that of a rear-drive model. You can do just about anything you like with this car. Being able to anticipate its response to input is a sure sign of properly resolved dynamics.
'Fabulous brakes' I wrote in my notes as a snap judgement. They seem even more impressive in the recalling. Its astonishing but this car can wipe away speed at more than 1g quite comfortably without the slightest loss of stability. I'm convinced that if you need to stop in a hurry you are better off in a current 911 than any other car on thr road. Porsche's implementation of the latest ABS technology is second to none.
The telling difference between this and the other current 'super 911s' is that you really can relax in comfort when you need to. It is a brilliant all-rounder, and stunningly fast. The combination of huge performance and driver-friendly manageability is unique in my experience.
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