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Porsche 911 997 Turbo 3.8
Updated 08.02.2010 On sale: November 21, 2009  
997 Turbo 3.8 Coupé and Cabriolet were introduced at the IAA Frankfurt in September 2009 and European sales were scheduled to start on November 21, 2009. The power is up by 20 hp thanks to 0.2 liter larger engine, but it is not possible to call this car a "facelift 997 Turbo" as there hasn't been any face change. Only the rear lamps were taken from the facelift 997 Carrera and the exhaust pipe ends have grown bigger. From the design perspective, old rear lamps and pipes looked better. The exhaust pipes are now too large. Smaller animals can crawl in to sleep the night over. Despite the quicker 0-100, the automatic gearbox should be avoided in order to get the maximum driving pleasure! We don't mind repeating it over and over again. Automatic gearbox ruins the fantastic driving feeling you get with the manual gearbox. OK, with PDK the 0-100 is an eyeblink quicker, but you don't buy Porsche for drag racing it in the city traffic. While you are already moving, both variants are equally quick and in the corners the manual is much better. Second argument for the manual is that nobody buys a car to keep it forever (with a few exceptions), so who will buy your 911 Turbo with automatic box? Maybe somebody buys 911 Carrera with automatic, but the ultimate 911 with automatic will not change hands so easily. We're in this business, we know that. Optionally available is the new PTV system - Porsche Torque Vectoring. Bad name, but good idea. It should help minimizing understeer in fast corners. With PTV, the inside rear wheel is braked slightly in the corner, giving the outside rear wheel a higher drive power. The result is easier turn-in when entering corner at high speed. Although we prefer simpler cars, with as less electronics as possible, the idea of PTV sounds good for the light nose 911. We haven't tried it yet though.   Central locking wheels are an option  What was wrong with the rear lamps on the Turbo 3.6 that they had to change them for the 3.8 ?   The brake discs in the back are now also 350 mm like the ones in the front. The standard metal brake discs are problem-free and defenetely the way to go.        Red is a sportscar color...  ...and white is race car color...  ...and this tone of blue is absolutely super!    This rear wing comes with the Aerokit Turbo (very similar to the 996 Turbo Aerokit wing)       Optional bucket seats    Thunderstorm!!!  Porsche Torque Vectoring - the yellow arrow for the outside wheel is longer, showing that this wheel spins quicker What we think: 911 Turbo has always been and will always be a very-very special 911. The 3.8L model has 20 hp's more and 30 Nm's extra over the 3.6L, but has uglier rear lamps and childishly big exhaust pipes (like in a cartoon) - so one step forward and one back. Anyway, take the 997 Turbo 3.6 or 3.8 and you have one of the best cars in the world. We seriously mean it. In the 911 GT3 you have only 2 seats, but with 911 Turbo you take your kids to school and on the weekend you win the track day... Photos (c) Porsche AG |