Porsche 992 Turbo S Lightweight: One of the Quickest Gasoline-Powered Cars You Can Buy at Any Price
Even at over $240K the Porsche 992 Turbo S Lightweight can be considered a bargain given its prodigious performance.
If this is the first article of mine that you have ever read, you should know that I am a massive fan of the Porsche 911 Turbo S. I have a modified 991.2 generation model of my own and I just love the thing. The combination of performance, practicality and reliability is unmatched. The 992 Turbo S just ramps things up to another level. And if you are looking to squeeze every last drop of performance out of the model then you want to add the new lightweight package. The 992 Turbo S Lightweight will set you back at least $230,000 before any dealer greed tax is added on. And while that is a significant sum of money, it may actually be one of the best performance car bargains out there today.
Sofyan Bey from Redline Reviews recently had a chance to test the 992 Turbo S Lightweight for his YouTube channel. His impressions primarily match my own. Which is that this car has an otherworldly acceleration capability. If you have never launched a Turbo S before it gives you this blurry-eyed, stomach flip type of feeling that can be unsettling if you have never been in a car this quick before. And it just keeps on pulling from there. But it is still a comfortable, reliable, and reasonably practical car when you want it to be. However, is the lightweight package really worth it?
Lightweight Package
$10,340 is what the Lightweight Package will cost on a new 911 Turbo S. That package includes lightweight glass, reduced sound deadening material, Sport Exhaust and PASM Sport Suspension. Porsche also keeps your rear seats and installs them in the next Turbo S built without the Lightweight Package. You can select the package with the standard 18-way power seats or for even more weight savings with the full bucket seats. You save about 70 pounds, which is roughly a 2 percent reduction in overall weight. If you drove a standard Turbo S and then drove a Lightweight Package right after would you be able to tell a performance difference? Highly doubtful. But less weight is always a good thing, right?
Benefits
The Lightweight Package does make your Turbo S a little more hardcore. You will get more noise, and a very slight reduction in acceleration times. A reduction that will be imperceptible to almost anyone. No one was ever launched in a 992 Turbo S and thought, gee if this was a tenth quicker to 60 mph then it would really be something. And whether you tick that box or not, you will have a car that can accelerate on par with the most expensive hyper cars in the world. Suddenly a quarter million-dollar Porsche seems like a bargain. Sure, some electric cars can be as quick or quicker. But, let’s be honest, an electric car is not a 911 Turbo S no matter how fast it accelerates. And if you want the fastest Turbo S from the factory, then the Lightweight Package is the option for you.
Alternatives
If you really want to bump up the performance on your new 992 Turbo S, you can save the ten grand on the lightweight package and invest in a good tune instead. And still have money leftover for an aftermarket exhaust if you want even more sound. A tune on a 992 Turbo S will give you a much more significant performance boost for a lot less money than the Lightweight Package.
My Choice
If I were to trade my tuned 991.2 Turbo S in on a new 992 Turbo S would I select the Lightweight Package? Yup. Sure, it is pricey, and the performance gain from the reduced weight is largely academic. But I like the idea of a little more noise and a little less weight. Then, I would get the car tuned and put an aftermarket exhaust on it. I would then get the best of all worlds. That is my dream 992 Turbo S build. Painted in Chalk. And may as well thrown in the Carbon Fiber roof while I am at it. Any dealers out there willing to give me an allocation at MSRP, hit me up. The rest of you, checkout the video below. Let us know your thoughts on the Lightweight package in the Rennlist forums.
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