About 9 miles up from the bottom of Glendora Mountain Road in a Porsche 2011 Porsche Carrera GTS, it hit me: I'm not working very hard. I'm in second gear at about 5500 rpm, meaning I'm out of the torque curve's sweet spot -- 310 lb-ft at 4200 rpm -- and still on my way to the fressed-over 3.8-liter opposed-six's power peak -- a beefy 408 hp at 7300 rpm. Translation: I'm hauling ass. I'm also having the time of my life with both windows and the sunroof open -- to better to hear the nifty sport exhaust - on one of Southern California's absolute top roads. Here's the interesting part: I've been hacking away at this twisted devil of a back road for a good 30 minutes. Earlier in the day I was standing around in 100-degree heat on a dragstrip for five hours clocking the Porsche's numbers. But amazingly, I'm just not tired.
"It's refreshing to not have to work so hard," says our handling sensei Kim Reynolds as he climbs out of the Guards Red GTS. By "work so hard," he's referring to the GT3 RS and GT2 RS we tested a couple of months back. Both of those are little more than thinly veiled race cars. Yes, those manly machines deliver astonishingly astonishing levels of performance und grip, but you have to man up to wring the great and mighty numbers out of 'em. "A 911's supposed to be an everyday car," Kim muses. "Those other two, I'd never even dream about owning either. But this one..." he pauses, presumably for dramatic effect. "I could drive this one every day."
Those words are ricocheting around my head as I blast the GTS through our MT figure eight. The contrast between my drive to the track and the here and now is shocking. On the freeway the GTS felt docile, even slow. I'd taken her out of Sport because I wanted the PDK to engage seventh gear, and I'd switched the suspension from Sport back to normal because, well, I'm getting old and the car rides a little rough. Thing is, when you're not in Sport or Sport Plus, the PDK is not only lazy, but the throttle response is turned way down. I had a hard time maintaining a constant 80 mph. A good thing, too, as I flew past a cop traveling at only 71 mph. I should mention that the officer was holding a radar gun and hiding under an overpass.
2011 Porsche Carrera GTS steering wheel
However, once on the figure eight, the GTS just comes alive. I had the transmission in Sport Plus, the most aggressive setting, but that didn't matter because I was pulling the paddles myself to change from second to third and back again. There's little like the feel of lightning-fast shifts from one of the world's great dual-clutches -- sharp, quick and brutal. PSM (stability control) is switched "off," but the word off is in quotes because you can't really, actually switch it all the way off. If the nanny-computer senses that you're about to kill yourself (for instance, both front wheels suddenly go into ABS) PSM flickers on. Kim complained of a hint of understeer, and a little bit of testing revealed that PSM popped on for a moment under fairly extreme conditions that typically precurse an accident. But who cares? Look, if you're so hairy-chested that you need the computer always off, buy a GT3.
You really have to be doing something awfully extreme -- like flat-footing it in second gear with the wheel cranked 90 degrees -- to get the ghost in the machine to say boo. And even with the non-cancelling PSM, the GTS goes around our figure eight in 24.4 seconds. That's quick. Really, really quick. That's less than half-a-second behind a Ferrari 458 Italia. That's almost a full second ahead of our long-term, 556-hp Cadillac CTS-V Sport Wagon. And it's exactly as fast as the GTS' much more powerful relative, the 550 lb-ft of torque rocket sled Panamera Turbo. Long story short, any car that figures our eight in the 24-second range is bona fide. But the shocker with the GTS is just how easy it is to drive that quickly. I climbed out and said to Kim, "I could literally and happily do that all day." He only nodded in agreement.
Back to that daydream of a mountain road. There's no traffic. I see one Camry, one Prius, one Malibu, and that's it. I keep asking myself, how could this road be so empty? You know what, who cares? Glendora Mountain is deserted and I'm driving what just might be the perfect weapon. You'll find loads of people willing to say nasty things about the 911's rear-engine-ness. Mostly that it's not as mid-engined as they'd like. But pay them folks no mind, which is exactly what Porsche has been doing for nearly 50 years. There's just something magical about that initial tail-out sensation you get when you toss a 911 into a corner, that little hip-flick. It's more like skiing than driving; the whole car feels involved in the turning process, not just the front wheels. I totally love it. And the GTS represents the best version of "it" I've ever had the privilege and pleasure to experience.
2011 Porsche Carrera GTS engine
And oh, how she bites. Do yourselves a favor and come back in the next life filthy rich so that you can afford a $121,000 sports car. Specifically, this car. Because this thing simply does the deed. As tight and twisty as the going gets, I rarely have to move either hand past 90 degrees. If I do, that corner is so tight that a person with more track cred than I would term it a "throwaway." Which takes me back to the skiing metaphor. But it's not the seemingly supernatural calibration of the steering that's getting me. It's the harmony, the balancing act between man and machine, the interface. Most of all, it's the physiognomy of it; the fact that my forearms feel like extensions of the wheel. As cliched as that sounds, it's not only real, but a beautiful thing.
"I'd have that car in a heartbeat," said our road test editor and dragstrip all-star Scott Mortara as he stood in front of my desk with a huge Porsche-induced smile on his whiskered face. Scott took the GTS home for the evening and came in shouting its praises to the rafters. "This is the 911 I'd get." A day later however, and Scott's singing a different tune as he repeatedly tries to milk the fastest 0-60 mph and quarter-mile times possible from the Porsche at the drag strip. Trouble is, every single time he tries the PDK's launch control the GTS reacts differently.
Says Mortara, "It was odd that every launch I did in the GTS was different from the last. Lots of clutch slip, minimal clutch slip, minimal tire slip to lots of tire slip, it never did the same thing twice. Which is why I think there is a better number in this GTS. It never launched hard, the way a good Porsche launch is supposed to feel like. I want a violent, seat-shaking, exhaust-pipe-rattling launch -- those are the ones that give you the best numbers. There is definitely a more aggressive launch possible if I was able to decide on the amount of clutch and tire slip like you could with a manual." Oh, would you be better off with a stick shift 2011 Porsche Carrera GTS? They are $4,320 cheaper. No, says Scott. "The PDK, on the other hand, when it's just shifting through the gears, cannot be compared. This dual clutch is simply amazing, and no one is going to be faster rowing their own." Conclusion? If you need to drag race a 911, get the Turbo/Turbo S.
