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Thanks Pete,
I always value your assessments. Have enjoyed your magazine for many years. It is always great to know that the author is also a 911 owner/driver.
I look forward to further updates and your eventual pictures.
Besides the 992 appearance outside and inside, which overall I don't prefer over the 991, I am just surprised that Porsche allowed the car to gain weight. Who needs 21' rims on a sports car. Porsches were awesome with 15" and then 17" and 18' etc. but such huge wheels just add weight and I want a lighter 911 overall. With all the newly designed materials to reduce car weight Porsche should be leading the industry in building a 911 that is lighter and more nimble. Throughout Porsche's history they have several times introduced a new capability to the sports car world. In my review of the 992 I was just irritated with the increase in weight. I get the mandatory safety features but we don't need SUV size wheels on our agile sports cars. The car is bloated and looks like it needs to go on a diet. Thanks again Pete.
VR,
Gordy
What do you think about the badly designed third rear light and the shaver ****? Did anyone at the event share their views with the Porsche Management team
Thanks Pete,
I always value your assessments. Have enjoyed your magazine for many years. It is always great to know that the author is also a 911 owner/driver.
I look forward to further updates and your eventual pictures.
Besides the 992 appearance outside and inside, which overall I don't prefer over the 991, I am just surprised that Porsche allowed the car to gain weight. Who needs 21' rims on a sports car. Porsches were awesome with 15" and then 17" and 18' etc. but such huge wheels just add weight and I want a lighter 911 overall. With all the newly designed materials to reduce car weight Porsche should be leading the industry in building a 911 that is lighter and more nimble. Throughout Porsche's history they have several times introduced a new capability to the sports car world. In my review of the 992 I was just irritated with the increase in weight. I get the mandatory safety features but we don't need SUV size wheels on our agile sports cars. The car is bloated and looks like it needs to go on a diet. Thanks again Pete.
VR,
Gordy
Porsche strives to engineer the all around every day sports car with capability to do just about anything. I think that is the essence of the 911. It can be a comfortable road trip car, take the wife to the movies or shopping comfortably...handle all weather conditions, snow, rain, cold, heat. A raw sports car with no creature comforts, you can go buy one...but it’s not well rounded. They are fast, harsh, loud, edgy, nervous, and yes exciting. I drove a C7 Z06 that was a beast of a car....but it wasn’t polished, or as well rounded, and was not ultimately livable on a day to day basis.
But I think in order to keep up with the competition in terms of expected or relative performance, Porsche has to continue to increase power and efficiency. It makes sense why the car is becoming wider and larger to a certain degree. They also need to keep offering luxury interiors and well rounded comfort, so this is a delicate balancing act. They are trying to make the do it all sports car. I could do away with some of the tech bits like gps tethered driving modes...but one thing I think we can count on is the performance bar being set higher with each generation, while maintaining usability and comfort/well roundedness.
I am very skeptical of 21 inch wheels being comfortable. some of the engineers have made comments that the overall dampening and chasssis improvements as well as ability to run lower rear tire pressure will increase comfort when desired. I think they are broadening the range of dampening variability with this car
Ok, let's try this once more—I don't know how many times I have rewritten the same captions, but that seems to be the problem. With captions, no love. Without captions, they'll load.
Let's start with these...
Completed 992 with bare 992 unibody. Photo Porsche AG.
And vice versa. Photo Porsche AG.
Different metals in different colors… Photo Porsche AG.
Cast aluminum front strut tower with bracing strap. Photo Pete Stout.
What I perhaps enjoyed viewing most…the body in raw metal, straight off the line. I found it fascinating to consider after looking at so many 356s, 914s, early 911s, etc in a similar state over the years.
Aluminum rear fenders, standard for the first time on a 911. Photo Pete Stout.
Forward interior structure/bulkhead. Photo Pete Stout.
Rear interior structure/bulkhead. Photo Pete Stout.
View through rear window aperture, with no roof cartridge. Photo Pete Stout.
Cast front strut tower (dark gray), with Panamera-ish openings in unibody to either side that suggest how much dead weight cars have been carrying around for decades. Photo Pete Stout.
Voids and openings. Photo Pete Stout.
Raw strut tower. Photo Pete Stout.
At the rear, I was most interested in the new engine mount concept, which is the first time a 911 does away with the rear "crossbar" engine mount—instead directly mounting the flat six to the chassis rails at the left and right rear of the car. Photo Pete Stout.
Forward area of engine bay. Photo Pete Stout.
Metal joining techniques employed on the 9x2 (982 & 992?), with samples of each, on a platter.
The 992 chassis reminds me of the "hole-y"/aviation-style unibody tech applied to the first Panamera, now applied to the 911. What is less clear is why the car has become heavier in the meantime. We aren't the only ones bummed about this, as it was fairly obvious that the engineers weren't happy about it, either. A bit of the weight gain can be chalked up to the particulate filters—but not very much. Interestingly to me, the cast aluminum chassis elements represented 9% in the 991 but now represent 13% in the 992. When I asked about the advantage of each vs steel, I was told that a comparison is difficult due to the differing construction techniques for steel vs aluminum (but I figure both had to be modeled...) and rigidity advantages (makes more sense). I did not get the sense this was the level of engineer often sent to press launches where you drive the car, so I decided to hold some of my questions for Valencia.
Okay, and some static images of exteriors in Chalk, interiors as presented, and the cutaways, which show just how densely packed the rear end of a modern 911 is...
Thanks Pete,
I always value your assessments. Have enjoyed your magazine for many years. It is always great to know that the author is also a 911 owner/driver.
I look forward to further updates and your eventual pictures.
Besides the 992 appearance outside and inside, which overall I don't prefer over the 991, I am just surprised that Porsche allowed the car to gain weight. Who needs 21' rims on a sports car. Porsches were awesome with 15" and then 17" and 18' etc. but such huge wheels just add weight and I want a lighter 911 overall. With all the newly designed materials to reduce car weight Porsche should be leading the industry in building a 911 that is lighter and more nimble. Throughout Porsche's history they have several times introduced a new capability to the sports car world. In my review of the 992 I was just irritated with the increase in weight. I get the mandatory safety features but we don't need SUV size wheels on our agile sports cars. The car is bloated and looks like it needs to go on a diet. Thanks again Pete.
VR,
Gordy
You're welcome—and thank you. Porsche allowed the 911 to gain far more weight in percentage terms, I think, with the 964 C2. I'd have to go back to that, but it was definitely a step in the wrong direction—and one corrected (if not in actuality then in spirit) in the 964 > 993 > 996 (!), etc. progression. Here, the 911 has gained a significant bit of weight, this while losing much of the remaining steel in the 991 unibody. I need to learn more, as well, but my take is that some of it is legal requirements, safety, etc., but some is also equipment choices. Porsche had a graphic that measured 911 weight to power through time, and this showed the 992 to be on target. Like you, however, I think we hit "enough" power a while back and would dearly love to see a manufacturer wowing us with weight savings with each new generation—Mazda's Miata did this...but the question remains whether this is right for 911 customers. Many of them are not us, something often forgotten on RL (which is understandable!).
Originally Posted by captainkirk
Hey Stout,
What do you think about the badly designed third rear light and the shaver ****? Did anyone at the event share their views with the Porsche Management team
Thanks,
There is always a back and forth at these sorts of events, and sometimes it changes things. Achleitner recently attributed the Carrera T (a car they looked into calling the Club Sport) to conversations with journalists at Rennsport Reunion V, so there's one example. There are others. With that said, the primary "learn" should be pretty one directional—if a member of the media is doing their job, in my opinion, they are gathering information for their readers or viewers on what the "it" is, and whether "it" meets its goals rather than the media's—and how well "it" does so. In my view, judging the 992 in this regard is impossible until there is a chance to drive it. Nevertheless, I found the information presented interesting and appreciated a chance to hear some of the logic behind decisions made.
As to my personal views, I am not sure they matter, but here goes: I was hoping the third brake light was covered up on all the mules because it was going to be two slightly taller grille strakes that were black when not illuminated that suddenly turned red when the driver hit the brakes—I think this would have looked pretty cool, and been a neat evolution of the 991.2 grille. Personally, I am not a fan of the final version, and don't yet understand the decision to have the square between the "strakes," but there was no designer present with whom I could have the form vs. function conversation. Perhaps in Valencia.
The shift selector isn't for me—but I am a manual transmission guy, so it's a non-issue if we are talking about personal predilections. If I was going to go PDK, I have to admit I prefer the old setup or even the 918 setup. But I need to use this one out in the world and see how it works…and will admit I only use the paddles in cars with PDK. So the functional loss, to me, will be minimal. It will also be interesting to see if the GT department seizes the opportunity to further separate its cars by replacing the 992 PDK shifter with something more akin to the giant levers in GT3 Cups and RSRs…there's probably an opportunity there for the aftermarket, as well. Or Tequipment.
More worrisome to me is the ever-larger center consoles (remember no center consoles? I don't care for the center console in my 991, and would gladly delete it), and the placement of the 992 cupholder (I feel the 997/991 cupholder solution is brilliant—if a bit of a pain to set up, which may have led to the 992 setup).
Originally Posted by DMDSpag
Porsche strives to engineer the all around every day sports car with capability to do just about anything. I think that is the essence of the 911. It can be a comfortable road trip car, take the wife to the movies or shopping comfortably...handle all weather conditions, snow, rain, cold, heat. A raw sports car with no creature comforts, you can go buy one...but it’s not well rounded. They are fast, harsh, loud, edgy, nervous, and yes exciting. I drove a C7 Z06 that was a beast of a car....but it wasn’t polished, or as well rounded, and was not ultimately livable on a day to day basis.
But I think in order to keep up with the competition in terms of expected or relative performance, Porsche has to continue to increase power and efficiency. It makes sense why the car is becoming wider and larger to a certain degree. They also need to keep offering luxury interiors and well rounded comfort, so this is a delicate balancing act. They are trying to make the do it all sports car. I could do away with some of the tech bits like gps tethered driving modes...but one thing I think we can count on is the performance bar being set higher with each generation, while maintaining usability and comfort/well roundedness.
I am very skeptical of 21 inch wheels being comfortable. some of the engineers have made comments that the overall dampening and chasssis improvements as well as ability to run lower rear tire pressure will increase comfort when desired. I think they are broadening the range of dampening variability with this car
^ Yes. A well-rounded viewpoint.
As to 21s, time (and a drive in Valencia, if the roads are good for testing) will tell—but the 991.1 RS is remarkably compliant for what it is despite its 21-inch rear wheels, imo. I suspect more compliance could have been had if things were softened up for use other than track days.
Nice objective write up and super pics. I think this Stout is some sort of gifted writing guru. You’'d think he wrote for a high end auto publication or something. A profession that unfortunately has become very watered down and anyone with a dash cam professing to be an expert.
Pete, nice pictures and thank you for the updated report. I look forward to hearing your impressions after you drive the car. Have a nice Christmas and New Years.
Gordy
Sorry folks, have created a folder full of pics and docs, but even after resetting everything, am having issues uploading pics. Something new to me on RL after 11 years of posting pics here. Will try to figure when I can. The solution has to be easy, but not seeing it so far…
Best,
pete
Its not you Pete...something is odd-wrong with Rennlist and uploading pics. I had a hard time the other day with pic when I was creating my Market Place add and trying to up load a picture on the 991 GT3 forum...I gave up.
Thanks for persevering and getting those photos uploaded! The raw chassis is fascinating to see...
Originally Posted by stout
...
What is less clear is why the car has become heavier in the meantime. We aren't the only ones bummed about this, as it was fairly obvious that the engineers weren't happy about it, either. A bit of the weight gain can be chalked up to the particulate filters—but not very much. Interestingly to me, the cast aluminum chassis elements represented 9% in the 991 but now represent 13% in the 992. When I asked about the advantage of each vs steel, I was told that a comparison is difficult due to the differing construction techniques for steel vs aluminum (but I figure both had to be modeled...) and rigidity advantages (makes more sense). I did not get the sense this was the level of engineer often sent to press launches where you drive the car, so I decided to hold some of my questions for Valencia.
So here's where I'm confused - I get the impression that there are substantial chassis changes in design and materials - yet we've got a an inexplicable weight gain that and get shorter gears to compensate (and I suspect a 7MT is in the cards, as well rather than a 6 speed). I'd love to imagine any engineering effort put into the chassis was also an opportunity to consider refinements that would increase rigidity and reduce weight... The engine is similar, the PDK is more compact, the added tech bits aren't hundreds of pounds (I hope), even the #nubbin should weigh less than the old PDK gear selector. Where are all the extra pounds coming from?
The 992 chassis reminds me of the "hole-y"/aviation-style unibody tech applied to the first Panamera, now applied to the 911. What is less clear is why the car has become heavier in the meantime. We aren't the only ones bummed about this, as it was fairly obvious that the engineers weren't happy about it, either. A bit of the weight gain can be chalked up to the particulate filters—but not very much. Interestingly to me, the cast aluminum chassis elements represented 9% in the 991 but now represent 13% in the 992. When I asked about the advantage of each vs steel, I was told that a comparison is difficult due to the differing construction techniques for steel vs aluminum (but I figure both had to be modeled...) and rigidity advantages (makes more sense). I did not get the sense this was the level of engineer often sent to press launches where you drive the car, so I decided to hold some of my questions for Valencia.
Aside from you mentioned, Pete, I think some of the weight comes from the larger rear wheels (21") and the PDK 8-speed, as well as the larger rotors.
12-20-2018, 10:06 PM
