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Aquaplaning-that unfortunate congruity of pavement,
water and tires-is a threat to the best of cars, even the best
street-legal Porsche 911 ever built, so please excuse your
correspondent's failure to drive the new 911 GT2 to its 204-
mph top speed on a rain-swept German autobahn.
Maybe I wimped out, but I also didn't stripe the center
divider with Porsche silver. Maybe I didn't attack the twisties
as the truly committed (committable?) journalist might have
done, but I also avoided-as could have happened with, say,
some older rear-drive turbocharged coupe-the dreaded trailing-
throttle oversteer that might have resulted from entering
a tiny burg's single, vicious corner too quickly, lifting off the
accelerator, stomping the massive brakes too tardily, and
simultaneously flailing at the steering wheel just enough to
miss planting the rear wing among the outraged geraniums
of a hausfrau's window box.
As heroic as my efforts were in avoiding such troubles in
the treacherous conditions, I will admit the 530-horsepower
twin-turbocharged coupe had lots to do with keeping
itself-the factory's strongest, quickest and costliest 911
($191,700!) to date-within the slippery lines of the world's
fastest streets, especially at 180 mph. Okay, this incredible
car had virtually everything to do with turning a potentially
disastrous battle against the elements into a delightful dance
around danger. (Imagine Gene Kelly singing in the rain but
having to hop-step around land mines.) The GT2's civility,
despite the torque that rips into the rear wheels at even part
throttle, made my soggy dash from Dinklage to
Cloppenburg an absolute hoot (even if my co-driver hadn't
pointed out the adjacent towns of Leer and Weener).
Except during those moments when North Sea squalls
swamped the wipers, and I had to use the lane dots as a
Braille roadmap to drier air, I might have been steering the
family schooner through the maelstrom-as long as I kept
the three-stage traction control fully engaged and moderated
the throttle as though a vial of nitroglycerin were rattling
around the rollcage. Thus tempered, the car's bi-polar personality
stabilized at warm and friendly, and even at hyperfast
speeds the track-ready coupe remained as steady and
comfortable as if it were one of its more sociable 997-based
stablemates.
Had I pushed the buttons to thoroughly disable Porsche
Stability Management, the upgraded 3.6-liter six's 501 lb-ft
of torque, which is on top of you at 2200 rpm like the
avalanche you almost never saw coming, would have spun
the tires until alarmed citizens called in the polizei. Zero
to 62 mph takes 3.7 seconds, says the literature, but it feels
faster, because the bi-turbocharged 3.6-liter six spools up
quicker than ever, and the 6750-rpm redline, just 250 rpm
beyond peak horsepower, can sneak up on you mighty
quick. The variable-vane technology that first appeared
in the "standard" 911 Turbo is augmented in the GT2
for faster response and higher flow, and the result is unrelenting
momentum all the way to, at least as far as I know,
180 mph.
Unless you're quickest at the club's track days (it won't
do just to think you're the quickest) or make your living in
fast cars, it's probably best to keep the electronics either
fully or mostly active, especially in the wet. Otherwise,
you'll have to deal with the polar opposite of warm and
friendly, and you'll see how the love affair turns into a
domestic squabble as soon as the car senses your inattention
to its needs.
On a sodden day when the difference between grip and
slip was a hair's breadth of moisture (that's 0.8 of a gnat's
eye in case you want to calibrate your depth charts), it
seemed prudent to back off as the coupe's digital readout
flashed 290 km/h. It was at that point, too, when my
co-driver reminded me of his family obligations, and I'd
also concluded that the remaining 34 mph would have
revealed more about my own limits than those of the GT2,
which are extremely high-so high, in fact, I'll argue to
those who make such decisions that this descendent of the
44-year-old 901 prototype is "The Ultimate 911."
"Yes, it is," agreed GT2 project leader Alan Lewin to my
proposal. "For the pure driver, this is the best 911…at least
until our little skunkworks at Weissach is asked to build the
next one, which, we hope, would be a better one."
I asked Lewin, a son of Wales and longtime German
resident, if the new GT2 is the ultimate 911, in both senses
of the word. Will Porsche finally announce, "Done; that's
all we can do!" to the famously snarky engineering challenge
thrown down years ago by old Prof. Porsche? Put
the engine in the back, and make it handle. Win lots of
races, too.
Lewin, who speaks in a soft "Swelsh" garble of Welshtinged
English, accented by vowel-bending Swabian
German, answered with a barrage of engineering-speak,
and, believe me, it was an adventure trying to follow his
explanation of axle kinematics and pressure expansion
phases in a crowded bar after I'd been jolted by a couple
tumblers of the local corn liquor. When I got tired of shouting,
"Huh?" back at Alan, I turned to Karsten Schebsdat,
the GT2's German-born technical project leader, who,
despite his unpronounceable last name, speaks perfect
English and, better yet, is able to translate Alan's dialect.
For more on this article and much more grab a copy of Auto Aficionado Magazine on newsstands nationwide!
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