The Porsche 911 is an odd duck. Here we've got one among history’s nice sports cars, a strong-selling, fast, good-looking machine that reeks of sex and history.
It is a marker of success: “Timmy bought a Porsche! He should have gotten that banking job.” High resale price makes it a decent investment. it's conjointly a technological triumph — despite their capability, Porsches are nearly always reliable, long-lived things. And however the model has continually been one thing of an acquired style.
The new 911 shares basic proportions — however no important elements — with its predecessor. it's longer, wider, faster, and additional fuel-efficient than the automotive that came before it.
There are a couple of reasons for this. At the instant, the 911 is that the solely mass-produced, rear-engined automotive sold in America. the following rear weight bias has historically created the automotive troublesome to drive at the limit and slightly unstable at high speed. Cane a 911 on the autobahn and you’ll notice the steering going lightweight and therefore the nose wandering — Dancing! Flitting concerning the highway! Manly stuff! — on top of one hundred sixty mph. Porsche folks realize this charming. Detractors suppose it’s obnoxious and anachronistic.
Porsche engineers being German, they merely saw this as a tangle to be solved. the primary 911 rolled off the road within the mid-1960s. Careful evolution has seen the automotive grow ever additional docile and controllable, and however faster. The Germans — once more, being German — were apparently not glad, and therefore we have a tendency to currently have the 2012 Porsche 911.
All that stuff we have a tendency to simply mentioned? Let’s simply decision it mounted.
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| Porsche 2012 911 Carrera S |
Hold on. mounted isn’t the correct word. additional like blown to oblivion.
This is a landmark, and in additional ways in which than one. The ‘12 911, known internally because the 991, may be a ground-up revamp of the brand’s most hallowed product. it's conjointly simply the third such redo within the model’s history. From 1964 to 1998 (34 years!) the 911 used a similar basic platform and an air-cooled, six-cylinder engine. From 1999 to 2011, it used a water-cooled six and a brand new platform, albeit one with an identical profile.
The new 911 shares basic proportions — however no important elements — with its predecessor. it's longer, wider, faster, and additional fuel-efficient than the automotive that came before it. The 911’s body may be a combination of steel and aluminum — the doors, roof, alternative|and several other} other key panels (about forty five p.c of the car’s mass) are made of the latter, cutting weight and lowering the car’s center of gravity. Wheelbase is up by three.9 inches, and therefore the engine is currently slightly farther forward within the automotive relative to the driving force and rear axle. Porsche claims this bumps up body rigidity by twenty to twenty five p.c.
Here’s the kicker: Amazingly, Stuttgart claims the new, larger automotive is lighter than the last 911. On high of that, the bottom 911’s engine shrinks, from 3.6 to 3.4 liters, however gains five hp and puts out a similar 288 pound-feet of torque. Fuel economy is alleged to rise alittle, though EPA numbers haven’t been released. All this while not an efficiency-boosting turbocharger.
This is what makes Porsche special, and why its engineers are widely viewed because the best within the world — they focus on surprises. Cars aren’t alleged to get lighter once they grow. Engines aren’t alleged to shrink and become additional powerful. Heck, if you actually get right down to it, from a laws-of-physics standpoint, rear-engined cars aren’t alleged to be a decent plan, period.
