Dear Mr. Porsche:
I’m sorry about what happened to your car (but more on that later).
In the meantime, thank you for letting me drive your 911 Carrera 4. I have never driven anything quite like it. It is fast — wicked fast and wicked quick — it is smooth, and it seems the only way you can lose control of this car is to make a deliberate and crazy attempt to do so (but more on that later).
It is hard to believe that the car whose prototype you built 51 years ago — remember those military parts and the leftover Volkswagen Kubelwagens that went into the 356? — has evolved into this quietly elegant but roaring piece of machinery.
In some ways, it looks so benign from outside. No bulging fenders-on-steroids. No gaping air intake ports. Just the smooth lines of a gently rounded wedge. Even the Carrera 4 tag on the back probably means little to those who don’t already know this is an all-wheel-drive car.
Inside, the first thing you notice is the dash: so simple, but again, so elegant. The main gauges wrapped in a soft, stitched, leather wedge shaped much like the car itself. And I love the way you took all those gauges and scalloped them one behind the other from the center out.
There in the middle, as befits a true performance car, is not the speedometer but the tachometer. At the bottom of this same full circle is a digital speed readout and the trip computer that tells you outside temperature, how far you can go before you run out of gas, what your gas mileage has been, and, if you set it, will warn you when you exceed your chosen speed limit. To the left, the semicircles step away as analog speedometer, voltmeter, and odometer. To the right are the shift indicator (for both manual and automatic options) and oil and fuel gauges.
On stems behind the steering wheel are controls for the trip computer, windshield and headlight washers, cruise controls, wipers, and light beams. All so simple and so functional. And so are the climate controls and sound system centered on the dash. Love the way the display face on the sound system pops open to reveal a CD slot behind it, and love the CD stacker built into the dash below.
The leather seats are firm and comfortable, though again, they are so simple in design they are understated. No bulging sides to hold the outer thighs; no raised lip at the front for support; seat flowing continuously into headrest. It all works.
The rear seats, well, there’s not much headroom back there, so four adults on a long trip would be problematic — but of course that’s not why you buy a car like this. Just as you don’t buy it expecting lots of storage space.
No glove box. Bins with lids set in each door at armrest height, small slots at the bottoms of the doors, a tiny covered box in the center console. The trunk up front is a small box, as well — no golf clubs or large suitcases up here, though folding down the rear seats would set two people up nic ely for a trip.
So simple, so understated. Until you fire it up and get that distinctive sound from its twin pipes and look out the windshield and down the hood, where the front fenders seem to be heading toward a wedge, a tipped “V” that says, “Point me somewhere and step on it.”
Step on 296 horsepower, cranking 258 lbs./ft. of torque from a flat 6 aluminum block, aluminum head engine, and the V seems to shrink before your eyes; becomes the point of an arrow, or the sharp, guiding cursor in a video game.
And driving this car — shifting up and down with both thumbs using the Triptonic manual shift buttons built into the steering wheel — is like being in a video game. Except, as Jake the Snake, my 9-year-old guide in things electronic, pointed out to me, “When you mess up with this, you can’t press the reset button.”
Other select-shift transmissions I’ve driven have still had at least some “automatic” feel to them, a certain lag after each shift, e n when set on manual. Not this one.
Crank through the gears from first to third (0-60 in five seconds) and each step is smooth but noticeable as you flash through them. Downshift from fifth to fourth at high speed and give it gas and you get a race-car rumble from the twin exhausts as you bolt forward. Playing with the car in a heavy way, I got just under 18 miles per gallon in a week of driving.
It’s a stiff ride, as it ought to be, and the handling is impeccable. And for some, that is a problem.
A problem because this Porsche is equipped with what is called Porsche Stability Management. That means it is as smart as some airplanes, and some folks don’t want their cars helping them out when it comes to on-the-edge driving.
This Porsche has sensors that monitor the steering wheel, yaw of the car, wheels, brake pedal, clutch and gears and throttle position. Viscous couplers feed torque to nonslipping wheels when others slip. The sensors can brake individual wheels to regain stability or alter engine power to recapture control.
In other words, to get this car to oversteer or understeer so severely you lose control, you have to do something seriously — perhaps intentionally — wrong. I tried it. Set the rear wheels on sand as I entered a 90-degree turn. Goosed the gas. Felt the rear try to kick out and send me into the World of the Incredible Shrinking Radius Turn. Couldn’t do it. The front wheels grabbed, pulled the car ahead, and said, “Oh no you don’t.”
So I switched off the PSM (for those moments when you want to induce terror) and tried the same thing. Nice fishtail, wonderful understeer. Oh yes, I do. But though I corrected easily, I could tell that this car, without the computer-assisted stability, could be dangerous in the wrong hands.
The speedometer goes to 175 miles per hour and though I didn’t take it there, I could tell in short bursts that it would eat up most of that gauge. The brakes — 12.5-inch vented discs up front, 11.8-inch vented discs rear — coupled with antilock control, brought the car to sudden, straight stops from high speeds.
Yes, Mr. Porsche, you have built a beautifully understated, rip-roaring beast of a car. A car I would love to own.
Now, back to that problem, and I hope you will understand. I can’t find your car. I still have the keys, but it just disappeared one day when I wasn’t looking. Somebody probably hid it in a garage or an old mine up in New Hampshire where I live. But I figure you’ve got lots more and, hey, what’s one little Porsche to a guy like you who has so many. If I do find it, I’ll be in touch. And again, thanks for letting me drive it.
Nice Touches:
— The lateral, telescoping movement of the steering wheel.
— An air conditioning system that kept me chilled right through the recent sweltering heat wave.
— The easy-to-use trip computer.
Annoyances:
— The danger of speeding ticket s. Leave your local post office, give the car moderate gas, shift 1-2-3, and look down. You are now doing 50 in a 30. Hello, officer!
— I have to give the car back to Mr. Porsche — if I ever find it, that is.
SIDEBAR:
The numbers
Base price: $73,908
Price as tested: $83,822
Horsepower/Torque: 296 hp/258 lbs.-ft.
Wheelbase/Overall length: 92.5 inches/174.4 inches
Width/Height: 69.5 inches/51.4 inches
Curb weight: 3,263 lbs.
Seating: 4 passengers
SOURCE: Manufacturer