Turbo SThe Porsche 911 Turbo S is the definition of a usable sports car. It’s devastatingly quick and fun in all its forms but also easy to live with every day. Taken objectively, the last Porsche 911 Turbo was all the sports car you’d ever need. Its jet speed and sure-footed handling combined with all the boring-but-true facts about being reliable and easy to live with make it nigh on perfect. But cars aren’t the most rational of purchases – supercars much less so – and thus such completeness can come across as a little strait-laced. In short, the 991-generation 911 Turbo was sensationally talented, but lacking in fun compared to even base Carreras, never mind the GT2 and GT3.You could argue it’s the natural by-product of lobbing indecent amounts of power at a car with all-wheel drive and multiple driving aids. Age-old things like ‘driver involvement’ sometimes take a little bit of a backseat. Given the wild reputation of the original 911 Turbo, the whale-tailed 930 of the mid Seventies, it felt like there was ground to make up.
Without skipping to the end too much, the 992 Turbo – launched in 2020 – has filled that gap. But it’s done so while piling on even more power, squeezing in additional driver assistance tech and – somewhat unfashionably – gaining weight in the process.The end result is a base 911 Turbo offering a 572bhp peak for a smidge under £135,000 while the halo Turbo S is a 642bhp, £156k car. For context, the outgoing Turbo S was a 572bhp car. Things have really stepped up a notch here. To the point the 992-gen Turbo S offers a 205mph speed, while both rungs of the Turbo ladder offer a 0-62mph time comfortable below three seconds.The aero package has also evolved with the changes to the wider, longer car. The adjustable front splitter and wider rear wing – both of which automatically go to max attack in Sport Plus mode, but can be set independently – add a claimed 100kg of downforce at the Turbo S’s claimed 205mph top speed. Doesn’t sound like that much, but it’s a good balance of added stability without shredding fuel economy.
