Can 48 hours with the latest
generation Carrera 4 uncover the true identity of the traditional 911? The
answer, as Total 911 found out, is yes.
The new Carrera 4 has received widespread
acclaim since its induction at the tail-end of last year. Even in this very
magazine, we marvelled at the evolution of the latest all-wheel drive 911,
reporting from our first drive: “The car is a masterpiece, almost devoid of
flaws. It’s genuinely hard not to find fault with it.”
But there may be a fault after all. For all
its 21st Century trickery, pert driving balance and stunning aesthetics, is it
actually still a 911? To find out, we decided to embark on a true test of
Stuttgart character: an epic road trip over two days in two different
countries, taking in 150 miles of differing roads each way. That traditional
character will be exclusively put to the test, and if the 911 soul is within
the new 991 C4, we’ll know about it.
48
hours with the Carrera 4
Collecting the car directly from Porsche GB
in Reading, the sole objective for day one was to reach a hotel in Wales by
sundown. Judging by our first drive in the 991 Carrera 4 in Austria, this would
be a walk in the park for both driver and car.
However, the first stint of our drive lasted
only 150 yards from the back of Porsche Reading to the sign outside reception;
snapper Ali had spotted a shot. This gave me time to scribble the first of many
getting to know you notes on the four-wheel drive 991, as follows: ‘It looks
like a 911. It still sounds like a 911. Feels a bit compact. Weighty gearbox.
Feels like... you know it’s going to be good. Remember to reference the
steering.’ So it seems there are plenty of questions to answer.
As we got underway again, I discussed some
of these observations with Ali while we headed out onto the M4 for a remarkably
unchallenging initial drive west. “You know, I was pretty underwhelmed by the
steering when I first drove a 991,” I said. Ali knew. He’d read what I’d read,
and heard about my first all-too-brief drive last year, where I took a 991
around the countryside-based block for eight miles and came back scratching my
head.
Where were the subtleties, I grumbled.
Where was the interaction? Why didn’t it gently writhe beneath my fingertips
like every previous 911 I’d driven had done? Okay, I was concentrating hard,
and eight miles is hardly enough to discover a car, but still, this might be
the first experience of Porsche’s new-gen 911 for many, which means I might not
be the only one disappointed.
Our
300-mile venture began at Reading Porsche
A motorway is hardly the best place to go
on a voyage of discovery for the 911 driving experience, though, so I instead
made note of the rather large steering wheel, the pleasingly traditional near vertical
and square-on placement of it (you’d be amazed how many rivals still get this
wrong) and kept it in the back of my mind. Let’s give it time.
With the oil up to temperature (great that
Porsche allows monitoring of this via both analogue and digital gauge - the
modern equivalent of the 996’s dual-mode speedos), I eased out of the lorry
lane and swept up over 50mph. I then did something else, too: I went into
seventh gear. It feels very weird the first time you do this on the manual
gearbox, and it’s even more strange coming back down, because you have no sense
of where you are. It would take a bit of time to get used to, not helped by a
gearshift that, shock horror, seemed to lack the click-clack interaction of a
996 or 997.
The
new torque distribution display is a fantastic addition to the Carrera 4
It seems we were back to the more
traditional 911 here; like moving from G50 back to 915. This seems like an okay
gearbox, but not brilliant like the one before it. The shift is a bit too
heavy, not quite ‘snickety’ enough, capped by an over-large lever and mounted
high up on a decidedly non-traditional enclosed centre console. I mused whether
the tables had now shifted. Would true mechanics-loving 911 enthusiasts now
draw more pleasure from the sheer sophistication of PDK instead?
Another asterisk in the notepad, then, as
we rolled gently along the M4, noting rather pronounced tyre roar in places,
but otherwise utter long-distance completeness. A bit dull thus far? You bet.
Porsche had suggested on the satnav that we turn off and try the A34, but we
didn’t fancy this either. So we zipped off at the next junction and wound
instead through frustrating little villages packed with school run commuters.
Damn.
The
Sport button was a favourite on the Welsh B-roads as the C4 was put through its
paces
We were looking for a real-world road trip,
and this was certainly it. To sensations of that traditional 911 weight
distribution, nose ever-so gently bobbing and damping breathing at speed in
that time-honoured organic way, I noted deep levels of in-town integrity.
Despite the 20-inch wheels (shod in winter tyres), potholes hardly ever
elicited a crash or a bang, and the feeling when we did pass them was one of
deep, deep-level solidity. Indeed, never once for the whole two days did the
991 feel frail or anything less than utterly bombproof. 911 die-hards can rest
easy.
The gnashing sounds of the engine from
behind were pleasing, while the glinting LED running lights and ice-white body
colour seemed to impress the school kids. The gear-change was still a little
disappointing, but at least the clutch was as meaty and positive as before. A
small detail, yes, but it’s part of the quality mechanical interaction you get
with a 911 that you can sense exactly how the drive is being fed through.
Small,
quaint towns made for a fitting backdrop to the stunning 991
Largely fed through, I might add, to the
rear wheels. Had we forgotten this was the C4? It’s quite easy to do from the
driver’s seat in such conditions, something confirmed by that snazzy new torque
distribution dial. Most of it is still sent to the rear most of the time, just
as Porsche says. The front bar graphs did occasionally flicker with more power,
but only fleetingly - when, say, I had to pull away from a mini roundabout a bit
sharpish.
