'A bit of feedback from the field'....and I'll apologise here and now if I start
rambling. I do anticipate writing this over a couple of days...and at least for
me, being a bit selfish, it's my take on RS ownership X 2.
Ok, the day before I collected the new car I gave the .2 RS a good final squirt
before I put into storage for the summer. So for those interested, hopefully
I can give a reasonable comparison of old against new for fast road usage.
For a track day comparison i'm not going to really know 'where it's at' until the
next DN trip which is a month away.
I actually felt guilty covering the car up and pulling the garage door down on
the old war horse...'why are you leaving me down here ?'...genuinely i was
pretty sad....pathetic really. I simply haven't got the space for another car and
for
Insurance purposes it has to be garaged...hey ho. So older brother is 35 or
so miles away.
Right, so how do they compare ?...neither car likes slow running, even the
new one feels 'old' in the transmission stakes. At low speeds it's got the same,
very individual ''chuntering' noises which GT3 owners know so well. Kind of
made me smile when I first pulled out of the showroom..I thought, 'that's nice
at least the car retains that 'basic feeling of being raw'. Once you get up to
speed and left in drive it's as smooth as silk and incredibly easy to drive.
Obviously, PDK equiped cars are unbelievably user friendly in town/city driving
and this one is exactly the same. Where as the old RS is pretty much hard
work in stop start driving the new one is a revelation. My only gripe is that to
ease away from a standstill when cold, in forward or reverse, the new one
requires a lot more revs than the old manual car, and it's a bit of a waste of
petrol and quite an irritation.
Get out onto an open road, stick it in manual mode, and use the paddles, wow
it's an amazing piece of kit !.The turn in is just plain and simple right up there
on the 'ridiculous level' and aligned with the rear wheel steering it makes
the new car feel 'small'. The older .2 RS is just as much fun, but in a different
way.The older car has more steering feel, that is without question, as you feel
every road ripple in a well geo'd old RS.
However, quite simply cannot compete with the wider track and larger front
rubber on the new car (265's on the 991 and 245's on the 997). Ok, I'm not
saying that steering feel isn't there on the 991, because it does have guite
exceptional feel, the steering is very positive and the car exudes 'confidence'.
It's very, very good and it's very precise...I suppose electrics just can't quite
replicate the hydraulic feel of the older 997. And I'm sure that the wider the
front tire is...the 'connected feeling' is quantifiably slightly less so.
Back tomorrow...for the 'speed difference.' :grin: