Then to the next car, and very suddenly it becomes clear. A flat-out gallop in the Carrera is more of a jaunty canter in the 4 GTS. Whatever else Porsche has done to the GTS, it has made it astonishingly urgent. The new engine is louder, gruffer and less nuanced than the old 3.0, and its responses are fabulously fast. The drive motor can pitch in at any engine revs and the e-turbo motor can maintain turbo revs, so there’s no discernible lag. It rips around the rev band.
Under braking and cornering, you can feel the extra bulk over the Carrera but also that it’s better tied down. In isolation or with a couple of hours between drives, you might not notice, but back to back it’s clear it’s quite different in character from a Carrera – more so than before, perhaps obviously. It’s bolder, brasher and less analogue and takes about 80% of the effort to go at the same speed on a circuit.
The rear-driven GTS shares the 4 GTS’s urgency but replaces some of its corner-exit stability with a tad extra adjustability and agility. For us, this is where the GTS is at its best, with all of the response of this new engine but as little extra bulk as possible and easier, uncorrupted, feelsome steering.
Since those drives, we’ve also tested a standard Carrera on UK roads, and driving it in isolation, it’s hard to see what more you could need.
Like every 911, it rides firmly and transmits quite a bit of road noise, but pick up the pace and it seems to relax. In the softer suspension mode, it has a hint of the fabled 911 ‘nose bob’ as it breathes with the road rather than trying to emulate a skateboard.
Despite the 911 having grown over the years, it’s still a manageable size, even on narrower B-roads, and the steering lets you place it precisely and reassures you that the grip is there.
In the dry, it basically always is. You don’t bully or provoke a modern 911, because there’s little point. It’s at its best being smoothly flowed along while you enjoy the superb steering and poise and the lovely engine. The brakes are strong and easy to modulate too.
