I said I'd drop some (slightly) more coherent thoughts in here on the new 991, so here goes:
I approached the new PDK-equipped 991 with some excitement: it was mine for the rest of the day and until 0900 the next morning. But would it be better? It's certainly bigger and the new shape and wheelbase with smaller overhangs looks much better than my 997.
Once inside the car, I was less than taken with the new central console. It looks nice but in terms of practicality, there's lots of controls that require you to take your eye off the road for a considerable time, as I found out. It feels like a good place to be - but but I found the fatter steering wheel was a little alien. Maybe I'd get used to it.
Adjusting the driving position and mirrors etc in my test car (thanks to Mid-Sussex OPC) was easy, just like the 997. Sport mode on, sports exhaust enabled, car into Drive and away we went.
I drove the best part of 200 miles that day and the first couple of hours of the next. Motorways, twisty country lanes, London rush-hour stop-start, fast sweeping A-roads, I tried to cover all the bases, driving in full auto, semi-manual and manual (using paddles).
Performance is a given of course: it goes fantastically well. Ditto build quality, no questions there. But when it comes to the driving experience, the default mode is not aimed at the driving enthusiast. The 911 has been a dual-mode machine for some time, good at both twisties and motorway cruising but I feel that the 991 takes the latter mode even further at the expense of the former.
How so? What can I add to what's already been said about the steering? It is more numb than before, you can't feel as much and, I found, when cornering at slow speed, the assistance on a couple of occasions resulted in my turning the wheel too far. Yes it weights up as you corner but it doesn't feel as connected.
This was a little worrying while on damp twisties. Nothing bad happened but I didn't feel very confident. I'm no driving god so doubtless that's part if it, along with the damp road and the fact that I had to return it in one piece which meant I wasn't pushing hard. But it's on those roads that you really want to feel that the car is responding instantly and precisely. It was almost there but I felt more comfortable pushing on in the 997.
There's another thing. PDK is a layer of obfuscation, of disconnection, of distancing from the sensory delight of driving. There's no doubt it's a tour-de-force of technology. I couldn't fault it, and for rush-hour driving (which normally never do) it's a boon. But it also meant I didn't have full control over the throttle, and the delays while the system figures out what you want to do are disconcerting. And on twisties, gear changing is part of the fun. So I'd still never choose automatic -- even though my OPC reckons that about 80 percent of buyers now do.
Maybe I need more time in the 991, as it's certainly a machine with much depth of character. Maybe I need to try a manual, see how that feels. But I drove a Cayman S recently and felt much more at home in that much more quickly, than in the 991. Has the plot been lost?
I approached the new PDK-equipped 991 with some excitement: it was mine for the rest of the day and until 0900 the next morning. But would it be better? It's certainly bigger and the new shape and wheelbase with smaller overhangs looks much better than my 997.
Once inside the car, I was less than taken with the new central console. It looks nice but in terms of practicality, there's lots of controls that require you to take your eye off the road for a considerable time, as I found out. It feels like a good place to be - but but I found the fatter steering wheel was a little alien. Maybe I'd get used to it.
Adjusting the driving position and mirrors etc in my test car (thanks to Mid-Sussex OPC) was easy, just like the 997. Sport mode on, sports exhaust enabled, car into Drive and away we went.
I drove the best part of 200 miles that day and the first couple of hours of the next. Motorways, twisty country lanes, London rush-hour stop-start, fast sweeping A-roads, I tried to cover all the bases, driving in full auto, semi-manual and manual (using paddles).
Performance is a given of course: it goes fantastically well. Ditto build quality, no questions there. But when it comes to the driving experience, the default mode is not aimed at the driving enthusiast. The 911 has been a dual-mode machine for some time, good at both twisties and motorway cruising but I feel that the 991 takes the latter mode even further at the expense of the former.
How so? What can I add to what's already been said about the steering? It is more numb than before, you can't feel as much and, I found, when cornering at slow speed, the assistance on a couple of occasions resulted in my turning the wheel too far. Yes it weights up as you corner but it doesn't feel as connected.
This was a little worrying while on damp twisties. Nothing bad happened but I didn't feel very confident. I'm no driving god so doubtless that's part if it, along with the damp road and the fact that I had to return it in one piece which meant I wasn't pushing hard. But it's on those roads that you really want to feel that the car is responding instantly and precisely. It was almost there but I felt more comfortable pushing on in the 997.
There's another thing. PDK is a layer of obfuscation, of disconnection, of distancing from the sensory delight of driving. There's no doubt it's a tour-de-force of technology. I couldn't fault it, and for rush-hour driving (which normally never do) it's a boon. But it also meant I didn't have full control over the throttle, and the delays while the system figures out what you want to do are disconcerting. And on twisties, gear changing is part of the fun. So I'd still never choose automatic -- even though my OPC reckons that about 80 percent of buyers now do.
Maybe I need more time in the 991, as it's certainly a machine with much depth of character. Maybe I need to try a manual, see how that feels. But I drove a Cayman S recently and felt much more at home in that much more quickly, than in the 991. Has the plot been lost?
