Gadgetory

there are very few cars that have been redone only three times since the early 60s this is one of them it's the new 911 on a platform designated nine nine one let's drive this 2012 Carrera S on that all new architecture and check the tech okay before we go inside let's do our spotters guide so you know when you've seen one of these the easiest way is to look out back those taillights are very different into my I borrowed from an Aston Martin up front great big eyes with big bubble headlights with some LED jewelry underneath them the whole cars wheelbase is almost four inches longer it has a shorter overhang there's less body in front of the front wheels and inside you immediately you're in a 991 because of that console welcome to the new Porsche 911 cabin what draws my eye is a lot more angular stuff going on on the dash they've kind of taken some of the curves out somewhat like on the exterior of the car that's called the PCM the Porsche communication management head unit and that is stock on 911 from a Carrera on up that means you're going to get navigation touchscreen you've got this knob you can navigate and click to operate with the big thing that I'm missing now it's telling of our time no voice command optioned on this car if you don't option it you don't have it at all but note this it's a German car so you can do all of this while driving your base audio system here is going to have its nine speakers and 235 watts you can go up to Bose that's the middle system we have that here it's 445 watts 12 speakers and a powered sub if you really want to go nuts spend double that $5,000 for the Burmeister sound system that'll get you eight hundred and twenty one watts still 12 speakers but now all that sound goes out through 12 discrete channels of amplification this center console was first seen I think in the Cayenne then Panamera now you've got it here in this 911 it still kind of grates me I find that it's getting away from the traditional relatively Spartan cabin of a classic 911 this is really modern car excessively developed to me you see the gear shifter we have this is for the PDK the double clutch automated manual it's a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission this guy cost a little over $4,000 for that option and this little PDK deal here is only on a PDK equipped car it'll show you a couple of things we have the sport mode which will give you a light that lights up right there or Sport+ which I'll explain later this little button here is not a pair of binoculars that's actually if you sport exhaust system an optional exhaust that content more noise out the tips if you like it - almost three grand show on me we've done about 1,100 car videos here at scenic this one has the least amount of engine I can show you that's it it's not really hit at all the engines down here in the back but you can't see it from the top anymore you're looking at a 3.8 liter flat six classic Porsche architecture you still get 400 horsepower 325 foot-pounds of torque the car weighs 30 to 50 it gets up to 60 and 4.3 seconds with a manual 4.1 with our PDK gearbox or get the Sport Chrono Package that makes everything more aggressive and you can get it down to like 3.9 all that while delivering 20:27 epa estimates on the MPG let's go see how they blended that efficiency and ferocity they may have noticed this button down here which is the auto start-stop defeats which I'd wear that one out there's one thing I don't need is a 911 doing auto start-stop but that is obviously part of how they got this guy 220 27mpg anderson of strategy another reason that they got to that pretty good mileage estimate is that they've got this 7-speed gearbox in here this PDK and it tends to like most automatics unless you stroke it it's going to seek top gear all the time so I do find this cars a little up a little flat-footed when you're just tooling around town or doing normal driving in standard drive mode with no support engaged however push this little button right here or this one next to it sport or Sport+ and everything changes now the throttle response is a little more ambitious the suspension gets firmer if you've got the PD CC which is the dynamic chassis control that kicks in it really keeps the car flatter here's how I put it though it really lightens the car push one of these sport buttons and you seem to take hundreds of pounds off the wheels that's the real magic of a 911 if you saw my take on the GTS recently you know that I really loved that car even in everyday driving and this one same thing however I was expecting a little more of a compliant suspension with the longer wheelbase this car doesn't seem to ride any more comfortably than the GTS it's very firm and sporty day in and day out like most owners are going to use this thing not on the track it can be a little tiresome ok this 911 is not a cheap date but you knew that going into it ninety seven thousand dollars base for this Carrera S and the new car is only available so far as an S or a base Carrera top of that nearly hundred grand I think that only pick a few options one of them would not be the PDK saving me $4,000 sport exhaust is kind of fun but $3,000 and I'm okay with the middle sound system we had on here the $2,400 ish Bose rig now you're over 100 grand no matter what you do on this car unless you take it straight off the floor and I doubt they're shipping a lot to dealers that way but this remains one of the great refined automotive stories you can ever get into