Penn4S

Actually not concerned at all. If this car is a winner exhaust sound can be fixed.

LCW

Would it be fair to say that a cabriolet will sound marginally better inside the cabin due to the reduced sound insulation (or the top down)?

Winegums

Concerns about sound are completely valid, especially if the performance delta is so slim. After all the two most important things about making a car feel like a sports car while driving are the sound and performance.

Need4S

People are saying similar things about the sound of the Ferrari 488 vs. 458. Turbo cars inherently sound more muted, because the turbos necessarily change the velocity and sound quality of the exhaust gases coming from the engine. The added boost has to come from somewhere! My 991 with a Sharkwerks exhaust sounds great, even from inside the car, so I wouldn't be too worried about the sound of a 991.2. Naturally aspirated engines will still sound better though.

Chris C.

There's a key piece of the turbo transition (and driving experience) that some may be missing. And I hope I am wrong!! The shape of the Torque curve. With so much low end power you can't drive the car hard into the higher range of RPM on the street without being in triple digits very fast. Did the car urge you to keep revving ? Was there a payoff to 7K rpm?

Also, you don't need to to get great performance out of the car. The result is a more "relaxed" driving experience where you don't connect with the true higher revving fun potential of the car. Now they will be fantastic at the track, once you fix the noise gap.

I thought I heard the 488 was torque limited in lower gears to entice people to need to rev the motor more - urban myth?

Secondly, I spent $$$ on an AWE exhaust to fix the sound on my F82. It was great most of the time - the best sound IMO - but the car still had an embarrassing turbo farting problem on overrun and was boomy as hell - wife wouldn't ride in it and every 20 year old fast and furious racer was drawn to it like the GTR it mimicked

Again, I sincerely want to like and purchase a 991.2 in the future, and this i admit is conjecture on my part. I paid a lot in lost time and money though in this transition just weeks ago though so it's not unfounded.

in my experience there are Turbo drivers and NA car drivers. I don't want to manage the boost in an apex ..I want a linear connection between throttle inputs and car responses. I hope they can find a way to preserve that experience. BMW did not, although the F82 is a fantastic car for those who enjoy that driving experience.

OMG Noooooo....

That is a perfect description of what I felt and feel. Thanks Chris C

The harder you push down the accelerator; the faster, punchier, more alive and louder the car should feel....this is unfortunately not the case. Yes you are going faster, but you only know that if you look at the speedometer.

STG

I'm really surprised that everyone seems like this is some new revelation? Did everyone really think this 991.2 would be a better 991.1? Everyone knows the reality of forced induction and the +/-'s

I knew what was upcoming, hence my disappointment with the forced induction ruining my favorite car. I'll be holding onto my 991.1 for a while and the only other interesting cars will be the GT's which will stay NA for the near short term. Plus, not like cars have expiration dates on them!

Chris3963

I don't believe I am missing a key piece of the turbo experience having had numerous turbo engined cars in my garage. One of the latest being an Audi TTRS Plus with nearly 400 HP and a quicker car in a straight line than my 4S. In that car you get a big hit of torque, low in the rev range as you would expect. I was expecting a similar experience in the 991.2 but was surprised how linear the torque and power delivery felt. I understand that Porsche have tried hard to do the same thing as Ferrari have done in the 488, I.e manage the torque delivery in the lower gears so it feels like a NA engine. So it's not an urban myth in the 488 or the 991.2.

So let's be clear, what I am describing in the 991.2 is good thing. It feels like a more powerful NA engine due to the linear build up of torque and power which makes taking the car to the higher rev ranges still a rewarding thing to do. It is not like the big bottom end whack of torque you get in an M4 where, if you nail it to soon, the car will snap sideways unexpectedly.

As I have said the 991.2 is a great car, it's just a sound issue. That's it.

CommonProject

Honestly I think the overwhelming majority of people out there are "turbo drivers", they prefer the low end torque, especially for everyday use.

dflowerz

Count me as one who will enjoy the low end torque of the new turbo motor. Seems like it is easy enough to drive the car at lower RPMs off the torque or just keep it at higher revs to use the HP. I have a KTM 1290 Superduke R motorcycle which makes gobs of low end torque but also makes good hp at higher rpms. I love that low end torque for riding around in traffic. Love the hp for wicking it up on the track or where street conditions permit. So it's not like the turbo motor is robbing the higher rpm horsepower. I understand that the na engine is going to sound a bit better and have a different power curve. I saw the the torque curve for the turbo and thought that curve was similar to my 1290 which I love. So for me the new turbo engine was one of the selling points.

MagicRat

Right then, have driven it! A very interesting experience I have to say - if you want the summary, it's that it's a very good car, but a markedly different one from the 991.1. Face lift, but personality transplant (NB by transplant I don't mean removal, merely change). Driving a GTS to the dealer, then spending half an hour in the new car, and then driving the GTS home, I feel in a good position to make a comparison. I'm probably going to end up writing at some length, firstly because I feel there is a lot to say, and secondly because I know there are people here who have ordered the new car as well as those who bought GTSs kind of specifically to avoid it, and I want to be fair to both groups.

Personally, I didn't feel I had a horse in this race. I love my GTS, but there are a few things I'd change if I were speccing again, most notably (and expensively!) the seats, so I went into the test drive prepared to be interested in buying if the new car impressed me.

So let's start with the bad news. Sound. There isn't any. I don't pretend to know anything about reminiscent shades of air-cooled 993s or oh-so-subtle overtones of wastegates but I know a really f*cking quiet car when I hear one and the 991.2 is it. To be fair I'm comparing it to a GTS with Fabspeed headers and 200-cell cats (recommended, again, btw), and I was chatting to the sales guy most of the time I was driving, but PSE on or PSE off, it didn't make a single sound that I noticed at any time whatsoever. It may be an acquired taste, and I would only ever buy a cab which would improve things somewhat, but my first impression is if sound matters to you then you will need to go aftermarket. End of.

The other bad difference from the GTS is top-end shove. Once again, there isn't any. When reviewers say it's worth revving this engine out, they are lying to get free holidays to launch events. OK, to be fair, most of them did say that the reason to rev the engine out was because of the sound, but that kind of falls down because there isn't any sound either. The GTS rewards you in sound and acceleration for every hundred rpm you add, the .2S gives you everything rather quietly and then that's pretty much it.

But.

What it gives you is very, very good. My main worry was lag, by which I mean a delay between pressing the pedal and getting what you want. Driving the GTS to the dealer I thought the new car would disappoint in this department. I mean it had to - it's a turbo, right? Wrong. A brief digression: the best book I've read about vehicle-handling technique is The Upper Half of the Motorcycle by Bernt Spiegel, a German behavioural scientist. Spiegel's thesis is that elite riders become the 'upper half' of their machine. You are not a person riding a bike, you are a two-wheeled superbeing, with the bike no longer a vehicle but a prosthesis. This is the feeling I look for when trying out vehicles of all sorts and for me a lot of it depends on throttle response. From the second I pulled away in the 991.2 it scored massively in this department. Yes you don't get all of the power immediately, but you don't get that in an NA engine either. What you do get is fantastic top-of-the-pedal response and a car that feels totally alive and electrically poised to do your evil bidding.

And it encourages you to be very evil indeed. The acceleration off the line is mind blowing. Genuinely leave-everyone-for-dead, thanks-and-goodnight mind blowing. And the fact that it doesn't make a tremendous noise while it's doing it kind of...works. When I overtake people in my GTS I kind of find myself hoping their hearts are in good order; the .2 would be gone before they knew it was there. It's a bit like...has anyone seen Homeland? Rupert Friend's character Quinn? He's a really nice, soft-spoken guy but God help you if you get into a fight with him. The 991.2 is like Quinn.

It also goes around corners quite astonishingly well. The one I tested had the rear-axle steering, and I couldn't tell you whether it was this or the improved suspension (it was probably both) but I felt able to absolutely hurl it about corners with more confidence and at higher speed than my GTS (and mine has PDCC and ceramics and this didn't). The main thing I liked about the RAS was how it seems to shrink the car at low speed; the .2 is without question a far superior city car to the .1.

What else? There's an upgraded infotainment system. I'm afraid I didn't look at, touch or ask a single question about it. The 'manettino' on the steering wheel feels like it came out of a Christmas cracker, which was unnecessary, and sucks. The boost button is a total gimmick and does exactly the same as flooring the throttle and...that's more or less it.

The big question for me is whether I want one and...I'm genuinely undecided. I've been told I can borrow one for 24 hours in the New Year and I'll take it on all my favourite country roads. Maybe I'll miss the NA fireworks there, maybe the very accessibility of the power means that the .2 is an engine one will get bored of, but for how I use a car (DD in London, weekend trips to good roads out of it), I do suspect the it may be the right choice for me. Do bear in mind though that last year I traded a Triumph Daytona 675 for a BMW R1200GS (for those who don't know, the first is a revvy, back-road razorblade, the second basically a very rapidly accelerating sofa). I couldn't be happier, and want to keep that bike forever, but many, many bike enthusiasts would consider that change to be sacrilege. If you definitely want that big, sportscar sound and feeling, that feeling of a car that is cooped up in the city and just begging to be allowed to stretch its legs, then I honestly think the .2 is not for you. Go buy a GTS while you can.

Although, you've probably already bought one, haven't you? Because here's the thing: I don't think what I've written here is going to be a real surprise to anyone. Those who want a car that rewards hard work and sounds fantastic have their car. Those who want instant gratification and more fun at legal speeds have theirs. Both are absolutely stunning, but they are very, very different indeed.

I will of course write more when I do the 24hr test, and do fire away with any questions. In the meantime, someone asked for more photos of the Bordeaux interior so here it is in daylight, and the absence of my ginger compadre. Looked much better imo, but definitely different from Garnet. More wine-like, unsurprisingly, and less like a float at a Pride parade than it did under artificial light.

OMG Noooooo....

Wonderful write up sir. Can you be my new favorite writer please....
So glad I live in the countryside. Thank you.

dflowerz

Thanks for the write up. Very very informative.

Archimedes

I agree with this, as long as the throttle response is really good. I've driven torque monster NA V8s that were awesome, and torquey FI V6s that weren't. As long as the throttle response is spot on, more torque lower in the rev range would be great. My only reservation is that I've never, ever driven a forced induction car that had great throttle response/no lag. If Porsche has truly solved the problem, the car should be awesome.

Dude174

Agreed. Throw some sharkwerks open pipes and I bet it won't be quiet