Porsche 911 992.2 2024 Review | First Drive

There are surprisingly few landmark milestones that strew the route the Porsche 911 has taken since it was first seen as the 901 at the 1963 Frankfurt Motor Show. There was the introduction of the original Turbo half a century ago in 1974 and the dawn of the all-wheel drive 911 with power steering in 1989. Then, in 1998, we welcomed the first genuinely all new 911 complete with water-cooled engines, and in 2011 another ground-up redesign bringing electric power steering and a dramatically elongated wheelbase. There are others, too, but none to arrive as during a mid-life refresh that feels bigger than this: the Porsche 911, a traditionalist’s sports car both by age and inclination, has entered the hybrid world.

But, being a 911, it’s not done it for the same reasons as everyone else. Anyone looking for a 911 that will decimate their tax bill will be sorely disappointed, as will those hoping to be able to creep past the neighbours in the small hour, wafted along on a silent wave of electrical power. It’s fuel consumption and CO2 figures are barely changed from the car it replaces. Porsche’s purpose in hybridising its most enduring product is partly concerned with maintaining its ability to meet global emissions standards of the present and future, and partly to engineer in a means of meaningfully upgrading its performance without resorting to the kind of radical engineering that would require a new car to be built around it.

Visually, 911s tend not to evolve much even when brand new models come along, and as this is ‘merely’ a mid-life update, it would be unrealistic to expect a dramatic new appearance. And yet no-one is going to struggle to identify this second generation model of the 992 series over its predecessor, and thank those active vertical vanes under the front bumper for that. They’re there not only to provide additional cooling to the hybrid system, but also to drop the drag co-efficient from 0.32-0.27, a sizeable contribution to aero efficiency. To make space for them, the indicators have now been incorporated into brand new headlamp units with Porsche’s trademark four point daytime running lamps. At the back, you’ll notice the exhausts have been pushed closer together and the already slim tail-lights narrowed still further.

Underneath, there’s an all new 3.6-litre flat six engine, unrelated to any other seen before and which is fed by just a single turbocharger. The electric motor is hidden within the PDK gearbox where it provides up to 55 additional horsepower to the 485PS (357kW) generated by the ICE engine. But that’s not really what’s important here: what matters far more is the 150Nm (110lb ft) of torque it is able to provide at literally light speed, whenever it is required.

Of course, all EV motors need an EV battery, but you’ll have a good idea of Porsche’s intentions for this car when you learn the 911’s has just a 1.9kWh capacity, cannot run by itself, and cannot be recharged from the mains. Why? Several reasons, not the least of which being that the design of the system was baked into the 992 long before it was originally launched back in 2019 and simply omitted until it was deemed necessary with this second-generation car.

To fundamentally change the design, such as would be required to make it a plug in or give it a meaningful amount of EV-only range, would have required not just a phenomenal amount of re-engineering but unquestionable and serious compromise to the already very tight package, including but not limited to the loss of a serious chunk of already limited luggage space.

And then there is that other issue: weight. Had Porsche gone down the now more frequently trodden route of doing a plug in, the additional mass of the vastly bigger battery that would be required would add an intolerable amount of avoirdupois to the car, probably as much as 150kg. As it is, the additional weight of not only the electric motor and everything that comes with it, plus an engine 20 per cent bigger than the last has been kept to just 60kg. Indeed, so obsessed is Porsche with appearing to be minimising mass that when it became apparent the car would have to be homologated with a DIN kerb weight of 1605kg, it made the rear seats a no cost option just to drop it down to 1595kg.

The reduction in 0-62mph time from 3.4sec to 3.0sec flat is just the start of the statistical evidence which illustrates just how fast this new GTS is. Mighty, though such a drop is at the very sharp end of road car performance.

Of perhaps greater significance is that if two drivers launched both the GTS and soon to be replaced Turbo S off the line simultaneously, 2.5 seconds later the GTS would still be ahead, even if it were only the rear drive model. Indeed, compared to the previous GTS it would be fully seven metres (22 ft) ahead. How so, given it has so much less power than the Turbo S?

The minor point to make is that with a rear tyre now fully two sections wider than the last GTS, this is the first 911 that’s as quick off the line in two-wheel drive guise as it is in four-wheel drive. Of greater significance is that the time between the foot hitting floor and wheels starting to revolve has effectively been eliminated. Even though the advantage is not reflected in 0-62mph times, in the real world the new GTS is quicker out of the blocks than the previous flagship model. It’s quicker around the Nürburgring, too.

Yet, your first impression when you drive it is not what a savage brute this has become, but how much easier it is than before. The engine’s voice has a slightly synthetic tone I might take a little while to become used to, but it’s so good at delivering power at all points in the rev range from 1500rpm upwards that such niggles are swiftly forgotten. The way the torque is delivered means you can leave it in a set gear for far longer than you ever would the old car, meaning more time with your hands on the wheel, concentrating on your driving.

Of course, you can keep the gears low and make maximum use of the gearbox, but so smooth and seamless are the changes (because the hybrid fills in here, too) that a certain sense of occasion has been lost. At times it feels like the world’s best automatic transmission, rather than the double clutch arrangement it actually is.

The chassis is as good as ever, and here the influence of the hybrid is an almost entirely good thing. Yes, you can feel the extra mass, especially if you drive it back-to-back against a standard Carrera (which is 85kg lighter and puts less rubber on the road) – the entry level car feels that little bit more nimble and adjustable, but otherwise the benefits are clear to see.

There is more grip than ever courtesy of those vast rear tyres, and a genuinely breathtaking level of body control for a standard model on street tyres rather than something cooked up in Porsche’s Motorsport department. The hybrid helps in a variety of ways: the breadth of torque it provides means you don’t always have to be in the right gear, the same properties mean you can lean on the fabulous inherent traction of its rear-engine design to exit corners at eye-popping speeds. And when it does start to slide, the instantaneous throttle response allows you to curate and micro-manage when and how much corrective or stabilising throttle is needed to a deliciously precise degree. The result is faster, safer, and funnier.

The only change of real significance is the instrument pack, but even here another 911 totem bites the dust. Since the very first was made almost a lifetime ago, the rev-counter has always occupied centre stage in the binnacle – the most important instrument of all. And even when Porsche introduced a digital dash with the first 992 in 2019, the rev-counter remained proudly and stubbornly analogue. No longer; the need to integrate even more information onto the screen, plus the desire to squish the dials together so all can be seen through the wheel means the gauges are now universally electronic. Some might hate this turn of events, but most will probably notice it once and then not be troubled by it again.

There is an absolutely bamboozling amount of tech concealed within those sleek lines, most interestingly concerning the hybrid system. And the first question to address is why revert to a single turbocharger, a configuration not seen on a 911 since the 964 series, back in 1993. The answer, says Porsche, is that the car doesn’t need two.

Normally introducing a single large turbo in place of two smaller units would be a recipe for disaster, but with the hybrid all those problems go away. First, because there is the additional power and torque deliverable by the electric motor and battery at any revs you like from idling speed upwards. But this system is even cleverer, because the turbo has a form of hybrid all by itself. As well as being powered by exiting exhaust gases, it can also be spun up to speed by electricity sourced from the same battery that supplies the rest of the hybrid drive. So, when engine revs are too low for it to benefit from the exhaust’s positive boost pressure alone, the hybrid steps in until the revs are sufficiently high to provide positive boost in the usual way. Moreover, there’s not even a need for a wastegate, because any excess boost is converted into energy with which the battery is recharged.

The only pity is that the hybrid system is simply incompatible with manual gears, so the three pedal solution has been deleted from the line up. Whether it will re-appear further down the range, where the old 3-litre twin turbo engine remains in production remains to be seen. So far we’ve only been introduced to the base Carrera which, like its predecessor, is solely available with the paddle shift transmission.

Once again Porsche has excelled itself. The hybrid is not perfect – whether that be the extra 60kg placed upon its shoulders, the lack of a manual gearbox option, or that there are no material improvements to the car’s consumption.

But in truth, it does far more good than harm, elevating GTS performance into old Turbo territory, but with none of the drawbacks of excess weight, compulsory four-wheel drive, or turbo lag. It’s not the biggest step the 911 has taken, but it still feels substantial.

Of course, it asks as many questions as it answers. Is this merely the starting point for the hybrid engine? Is there a possibility of the Carrera S and T models slotting in below using the old twin turbo engine, and leaving alive the possibility of manual gears in anything other than a GT3? And what about at the other end? If the GTS is now as quick in real terms as the previous Turbo what kind of performance is the new one of those going to possess? And the Turbo S? Truly, the mind boggles.