Porsche 911 TURBO CABRIOLET
Still Around And Still Profitable, Porsches Present To Itself Is This 911 Turbo Cabriolet, A Car The Rich And Famous Will Lust After. Jonathan Crouch Drives It
Ten years ago, nobody would have put a penny on Porsches survival as the smallest independent car maker in the world.
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Back then, the company didnt have enough money to develop some of the cars its wealthiest buyers really wanted. A replacement for the post-1987 911 Turbo Cabriolet for example, a 330bhp air cooled beast which had sold in tiny numbers to a privileged few. Today of course, things are very different. The order book may not be quite as bulging as it was a few years back but the success of the Cayenne 4x4 has more than made up for any shortfall and profits remain at record levels.
Time then, for
Porsche to treat itself, just as it hopes potential buyers of the latest 911 Turbo Cabriolet will want to do. This car was developed under the same codename (930) as the 87 original but apart from that, there arent too many similarities between these two 911s. For a start, all Porsche engines are water-cooled these days of course and rather bigger. This one is, as you would expect, borrowed from the 911 Turbo Coupe, 3.
6-litres in size with six cylinders, twin turbos and a hefty 420bhp output. That enables the rest to sixty time to drop from 5.3s to 4.3s over the original model and the maximum speed to rise from 161 to 189mph.
An even more telling statistic is the production of 560Nm of torque at 2,700rpm. Of course, the price has risen too and by quite a lot. The £96,130 asking figure is nearly £9,000 more than the Turbo Coupe and around £3,000 more than, say, a Carrera2 customer would have to find to trade up to Cabriolet motoring. Such is the price of exclusivity.
But is it one worth paying? After all, for £26,000 less (the price of a decent secondhand Boxster for days when you feel like slumming it), Porsche can also sell you the almost equally desirable 911 C4S Cabriolet. Here is a car which looks almost identical, is only a second slower to sixty and still manages 175mph flat out. There are some visual differences between the two cars but youd have to be a bit of a Porsche anorak to spot them. Chief amongst these are the air intake scoops in the side panels, the unique 18" wheels and the extending rear wing. Despite this, the existence of so many C4S Cabriolets on the road will certainly rob this car of some of the exclusivity that its limited production numbers ought to confer. Still, for all that, theres likely to be no shortage of rich and famous names on the order book. The performance figures better the
Ferrari 360 Spider that potential buyers could have for £16,000 more, while the four wheel drive system ensures that even Michael Schumacher might struggle to keep you in site were he to be following you in the Ferrari with the rain falling.
"Like all really delicious purchases, the 911 Turbo Cabriolet makes no real practical sense. ."
Thats assuming youve the driving skill to get something like the best out of this car of course. If you havent, youre really better off donating £40,000 to Save The Children, buying a standard Carrera 4 Cabriolet and averting the possibility of a very nasty accident. Dont get us wrong, this is arguably the safest supercar you can buy. All-wheel drive traction allied to Porsches excellent PSM (Porsche Stability Management) Stability control system is in theory, a almost failsafe combination.
In practice, you cant cheat the laws of physics and for a car that is just so fast, the potential for an accident in the hands of an uninitiated driver is just so much greater. Should the worst happen, roll-over bars pop out from behind the rear seats once the cornering angle suggests that the car is about to roll. Plus, as youd expect, theres the usual bouncy castle complement of interior airbags. Of course, if you do have both the experience and the money, then there are few greater pleasures in life than attacking your favourite twisting country road sun out, roof down in this car.
If you plan to use it for track days, wed suggest the extra investment of a set of the companys superb ceramic brakes, which those in the know will spot by their yellow callipers. Thats not to say that the standard brakes arent also superb, this always a class-leading feature of 911 motoring. The roof opening system is a neat one, occupying 20 seconds up or down - or with wind resistance, about 6 seconds longer. Wind resistance? You need to know that the roof will open or close at speeds of up to 31mph, a really nice touch.
As youd expect for the money, Porsche have thrown the options list at this car, reasoning that most owners will specify most things anyway. So it is that you get leather upholstery, metallic paint, a great BOSE sound system, heat insulating glass, satellite navigation, anti- dazzle mirrors, electric memory seats and of course automatic air conditioning, a trip computer, rain-sensing wipers and an alarm system with interior surveillance. For the lazy or urban-bound, the semi-automatic Tiptronic S gearbox is an option, complete with steering wheel buttons. As with all Cabriolet models, a wind deflector and hard top are fitted as standard.
Like all really delicious purchases, the 911 Turbo Cabriolet makes no real practical sense. But then it doesnt really need to justify itself. Top down in Tuscany on that holiday you always promised yourself, youll thank God you were able to buy one. And that Porsche were still around to make it.
FACTS AT A GLANCE
CAR: Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet
PRICE: £96,130 - on the road
INSURANCE GROUP: 20
CO2 EMISSIONS: 309-339g/km
PERFORMANCE: 0-60mph 4.3s / Max Speed 189mph
FUEL CONSUMPTION: (urban) 14.9mpg/ (extra urban) 30.7mpg / (combined) 21.9mpg
STANDARD SAFETY FEATURES: Twin front and side airbags, ABS, automatic rollover protection, Porsche Stability Management system
WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE?: Length/Width/Height, 4435/1830/1295mm
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