First Drive: The New Porsche 911 Carrera S

What’s going on? Why is the new 911 so, well, anodyne? It was getting late and a bunch of English journos was giving Michael Schätzle something of a hard time. Porsche only had itself to blame. As well as giving us the new cars to drive from Santa Barbara to the Santa Maria Jet Center, it had brought over a selection of historic 911s from the museum in Stuttgart.

As reference points to how much the icon had changed over the years it was simply brilliant. The trouble is, everyone liked the old cars. A lot. Character, quirks, idiosyncrasies, call it what you will, the old timers had it in spades and the new car has lost much of that in the search for efficiency.

Michael Schätzle is the project manager behind the new 911, and he took the implied criticism well. His view is equally valid. There are plenty of drivers who don’t want a car that wanders about on the freeway at 165mph.

Of course Teamspeed drivers know that you simply hold the steering wheel of a 911 lightly and let it sort out its own direction. But the white-knuckle brigade who rigidly grip the wheel don’t like it.

So the 2012 Porsche 911 gets a wheelbase lengthened by 4 inches, a wider front track and body work, and a massive ramp up in electronics. This is a genuine all-new 911, with a lightweight body where aluminum pays a major part in a weight reduction program of as much as 45kg.