StudGarden

While Id like that to happen, I don't think the 991.1 will get quite as much love as the 993. But it should still get some, and maybe eventually a lot.

I really don't think the 991.2 will get nearly as much hate as the 996 (unless it has mech issues and they play "deny deny deny" with people).

The problems with the 996 really ended up having little to do with the tradition shattering new tech and almost everything to do with quality and appearance. If it's negative rep was still attributable to being water cooled, the 997 and 991.1 would be dragged down as well and I don't think it's fair to claim that's the case.

The 991.1's will probably never end up "investment grade" because of all this junk science oligarch nonsense, but it *should* hit a shallower bottom a little bit sooner.

If they never made the 996 and instead went right from 993 to 997.2 the "first water cooled" wouldn't have been nearly as controversial. The 993 would still be sailing the trade winds of nostalgia and purism though. I think, again to a lesser extent, the 991.1 will enjoy a similar fate.

All that said, and assuming the 991.2 can avoid quality issues (and are properly backed up by Porsche if they experience any) I have no doubt they will do it right and field an amazing car (fake politburo mafia out of context fuel numbers notwithstanding) and the 991.2 will (still) look great (please no cheap looking boy racer exhaust like in some spy photos though) and will at least perform a solid notch above the point one.

Most important, I'm sure that while it may or may not sound quite as sweet as the NA's, they will still sound amazing.

STG

Shouldn't we be happy we have the government funding automobile performance research?

If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have things like:

Anti lock brakes
Seat belts
Radial tires
Safety windshields
Windshield wipers
Headlights
Rear view mirrors
Stickers on our sun visors
Tire pressure monitoring sensors

And amber side markers!!!

Those greedy car companies would be making us driving around in open top go karts making them for $1,500 and putting a Porsche badge on and charging $100,000 for it.

Uncle Sam invented the car didn't he?

Dude174

It is interesting that some of the most anti turbo posters are some of the same who are such ardent pdk supporters. When those of us who prefer 7mt speak of driving dynamics and enjoyment of driving process, we are laughed at and told to get with the program. I believe chuck said driving is using the wheel and pedals not the clutch - but the aspiration of the engine itself is indicative of the world coming to an end.

For the record, I think all turbo is a bad idea. I would prefer a NA option for enthusiasts of NA engines not just in GT3 models - perhaps continue development of the GTS in future with updates to its current powerplant. BUT I do think said NA vehicle should also include a proper manual for those of us who want one. Or is pdk a government plot to control emissions as well?

Karl_W944

I don't think you can compare PDK vs MT and NA vs FI so easily here. That's just me.

STG

Petevb:

Originally Posted by STG991
IIf there is a kernel of truth to that article it's just all the beginning of a great nightmare.


Where did you quote me from here? Confused.

I appreciate your technical statistical analysis, but some plain old common sense and rationale has to also play into the discussion.

I've dealt with engineers and statisticians and they can be very narrow focused.

Questions:

1. Turbos have been around forever. Why go all out now for Porsche? Why are they doing it? Would they be doing it with no outside regulations? Are they voluntarily holding back car performance because they are greedy?

2. Can we thank the government for advanced in HP? What next? Limitations on HP cars can have because they pose a danger to drivers? You know that's next. Who needs 500-800HP in a street legal car right?

3. Does the government know more about making cars than the car companies themselves?

4. What evidence is there to support government imposed lower emissions on a multi billion dollar worldwide industry? How have these laws come to be?

STG

Off topic a bit but,

I think EVERY car should be made available in a manual for driving enjoyment. Aside from it being slower/faster.

The driving experience is determined by the driver. Who cares what a dual clutch can do versus a manual. Whatever the driver prefers and has FUN driving.

I think automatics are a way to control emissions somehow, but the PDK is very very profitable for Porsche and they can charge a lot for it.

A GT3 with no manual?? Really? Give a buyer a choice.

Back to NA vs. Turbo

STG

Older article here, but relevant.

http://m.caranddriver.com/news/obama...icles-car-news

Dude174

This reminds me of when I had my e92 and the forum was about going to the turbo S55 derived from the N55. At least Porsche hasn't used a more plebeian engine - the flat 6 is still bespoke.

It would be cool for them to have continued to go NA and increase displacement to get desired hp/torque to keep up with competition. But note the new z06 recently went from high displacement to forced induction. These high hp numbers we seeing nowadays in the latest hp arms race are all coming from forced induction I think.

Interesting times we are in. Maybe this era is industry last gasp before electrification so we can tell future generations - remember when...

StudGarden

But...but...electric power steering!! Waaaaaa!

Petevb

Regulations have accelerated the change due to the competitive landscape, but Porsche has been steadily moving towards efficiency.

Turbos have been around for years, but they have been getting much, much better- driving turbo cars from the 70s, through today and you see a massive and clear technical progression. The days of low compression ratios and serious lag are long gone, and for many applications the turbo now makes a better street engine today.

Meanwhile Porsche measures itself on efficient performance. Social acceptance is critical to their success, and they want to be the most efficient for competitive reasons. They are tracking this very closely, and can't allow themselves to fall behind for their core models. For example:


Thus to the extent that high efficiency and performance is now technically possible Porsche must go in that direction. Porsche is on the front foot, from the 918 on down, but expect in particular the Japanese to give them strong competition that would push them along even if regulation didn't exist. I do agree they are going faster than they otherwise would, but that's the point of the regulations, isn't it?

It improves profit margins, certainly, but that's not the core reason they are voluntarily holding back. Which they clearly are. At the core their issue is that sports cars are getting too fast for the road. Dropping a 3.8 turbo engine in the Cayman would be cheap (most parts are shared anyway) and easy, and would yield a cost effective Z06 competitor. But when you have a 90K car that's faster than a Carrera GT, a) how fun is that for the average driver, and b) how fast does your 180k car need to be to sell? Meanwhile speed limits are not going up, and you're already approaching Group B power to weight ratios, cars that the best drivers in the world couldn't handle, with a lower end model.

Performance sells because most people like a measuring stick, and they think they want it. However if it's given they can't actually use much of it unless they track. Most people would both have less fun on the street and couldn't handle the performance Porsche engineers could easily give them. Hence the slow, steady improvement in Porsche performance improvement for the last couple decades.

Meanwhile someone like Vette (Z06) or Nissan (GT-R) doesn't have this issue to the same extent, because they are making a car for the top 1% of their customer base. It's OK if that's a little hairy and a bit too fast to fully use on the street- they are paying for that experience. Porsche can't and shouldn't make the majority of its cars that fast.

You can thank the German government for horsepower and performance. Porsche and every other German car manufacture achieves their current high performance and polish as a direct result of the government funded autobahn, which has pushed all German manufactures to make superior performance cars. You can also say that the German government was responsible for giving Porsche his start. We won't mention who...

Is that "big picture" enough?

StudGarden

Lol the government autobahn. IOW, dey didn't build dat!

LOL

Thanks, I enjoyed that laugh.

chuck911

I'm going to use this misunderstanding as a launching pad… three… two… one...

Driving is the art of making the car do what you want by controlling weight transfer with steering, acceleration and braking. Shifting only becomes a factor with certain automotive designs. Every car must be capable of speeding up, slowing down, and changing direction. Period.

Where performance cars in general, and Porsches in particular, set themselves apart is in the degree of responsiveness and control they provide drivers in delivering these three things.

The subject being turbo's means we're talking acceleration. Power. Throttle control.

Now the first thing to understand is nothing in a car is absolute. Its all tradeoffs. For every situation where instantaneous snappy throttle is desired there's another where a slower response is preferred. Porsche explicitly confirms this with buttons that let us choose which way we want to go.

The buttons give each car a range, and then on top of that Porsche gives us a range of models. From Carrera to S to GT3 to Turbo S there's a range of performance, and not only in numbers but responsiveness.

The Turbo S at the top of the range has the most performance, but is also clearly the most GT oriented model. So much so that a lot of guys would argue the GT3 is the most high performance model- and make a pretty compelling case of it too.

It all depends on what you want, on which aspects of performance you value most.

This freedom of choice, or more to the point this taking away of our freedom of choice is what has everyone so concerned. As well they should be. Because it is not just turbo's. As should by now be perfectly clear, they not only don't want us being free to choose our cars, they don't even want us being free to talk about choosing our cars. Its all about efficiency, so shut up.

All well and good … if you're in the market for a Prius. But I suspect an awful lot of Porsche owners have a somewhat different take on performance.

And not only Porsche owners. In the article people keep posting its Ferrari complaining about turbo's. Nobody it seems is dumb enough to even try and say this is competitively driven. (Wait, I take that back, one guy actually did say that above! Crikey!) But the one ideologue excepted, I trust the rest of us can see perfectly clearly that this has nothing to do with performance, everything to do with politics, and is for that reason alone a bad thing, regardless of how well Porsche will undoubtedly implement it.

Dude174

I do agree with a lot of what u say and I said in the same post - for the record I'm for NA engines being available as a choice. My only 7mt vs pdk comment was in relation to people who say shut up and drive the transmission that is the fastest and what the car is designed around. Or people who complain about electric steering. It's all relative, technology marches on. Yes the pdk is faster but I prefer 7mt, yes the NA sounds better, is more responsive, linear, less heat transfer, less complicated, etc. But in light of the competition and the hp wars, does turbo not offer more hp without a huge increase in inefficiency?

I must hang out with different car people, but I get a lot of "for x dollars why wouldn't u go with y vehicle that offers z hp instead of $100k Porsche with "only" 400". Look at BMW - their research shows many new owners thought they were fwd! Maybe Porsche average customer doesn't care if it's turbo or not? Note I said average, not rennlister. Maybe they know people who buy their cars and who they want to buy their cars care about efficiency and emissions. Isn't that why the air cooled went away? Emissions? Or did water jackets provide better hp like the race cars of the 80s? I dunno, I'm not an engineer.

I agree there should continue to be a NA option. Maybe the gts is the answer. I just wish the political stuff weren't involved in this car guy (and gal) discussion.

Petevb

One of the most prominent features of 911 engines has always been their low fuel consumption relative to engine power. The new 911 Carrera models clearly set themselves apart from their competitors with their fuel consumption and acceleration values... In addition to improving performance, efficiency is also of maximum importance in line with the strategy Porsche Intelligent Performance.

I didn't write the above, or come up with the graph. Porsche did... Crikey!

Forest through the trees...

drmatara

And talking about fuel consumption and efficiency, current Carrera if driven like a Prius will get you Prius MPGs...I've done couple of tests driving speed limit and changing gears every time the gear change indicator indicated so, and the result is amazing for such a performance car. (base Carrera with 7MT)