New 911 ST

[beh911]

Modern 911s (991 and 992) are amazing cars.
The allocation/flipper bespoking phenom going on nowadays is a bit of a black eye to the brand from an enthusiast’s perspective.
The cars are much more complex and have to balance so much more in terms of safety, performance, environmental and all the rest.
But make no mistake these cars are still Porsche.

[billh]

Modern 911s (991 and 992) are amazing cars.
The allocation/flipper bespoking phenom going on nowadays is a bit of a black eye to the brand from an enthusiast’s perspective.
The cars are much more complex and have to balance so much more in terms of safety, performance, environmental and all the rest.
But make no mistake these cars are still Porsche.

Well said
If you want to complain about the "weight" of new Porsches, take a look at your government and its associated rules on airbags, side guard door beams, bumpers, emission control.....and the consumers thirst for the latest electronic crap.
Todays GT3's are every bit the worthy successor to the 73RS, except superior in every way.....performance (acceleration, braking, cornering, lap times), sound (yes my old GT3 sounded better at 9k rpm than my 2.2S did at 7k) and of course FAR superior build quality, galvanized everything so you aren't chasing perpetual rust issues etc.
Thankfully we all like different things, otherwise it would be a pretty boring world

Anyone who thinks the new performance 911's (ie GT3) are poser cars needs to drive one.
The only bad thing about them is the nonsense around buying & owning them (begging dealers for allocations, upcharge vs MSRP and the resulting flipping to dealer after dealer)

[911MRP]

“ over time it becomes more approachable, and there will be markets where this doesn’t matter anyway. But on small mountain roads, where you’re wondering if you’d be having any less fun in a Lotus Elise or a Peugeot 106 Rallye, I thought it’d be nice to have less metal either side of me.”

This was the particular comment that caught my attention when I started the thread as I was one of just two directors accountable for the Lotus Engineering Ltd division when we reengineered the Lotus Elise and was was promoted to the Group role (as shown here on my old business card) when we built and stood up a greenfield factory at Hethel to build the the second generation Lotus Elise: Attachment 607011
I suppose it’s natural to pay attention when a motoring journalists comments about an automotive product where one has had any degree of involvement in its development; particularly when that journalist is writing for a motoring publication of some renown that’s been going since the 1890s?

Regarding driving Porsche niche high-performance cars, several years ago a friend kindly let me drive his then new GT3 RS which nicely bookended my experience of RHD Porsche RS products since I’ve owned a first 500 series RS for over thirty years. Obviously I didn’t abuse the kindness as it wasn’t my car and it was a short drive on the public road so the experience was a tiny fraction of what that car was truly capable of. It was magnificent; the then latest generation GT3 RS seem to shrink around me despite the very significant increase in weight and girth compared to my original 73 RS.

In England our roads are now festooned with speed cameras and worse still average speed control some sections of main roads which mean to enjoy the a car dynamics on the road would have to be somewhere off the beaten track — the smaller sinuous country roads and lanes. Luckily we have them here. That’s where the author’s comment becomes very pertinent.

Since the Elise’s ride and handling developed by the talented Lotus Engineering team at Hethel was and is still regarded by many as a benchmark there was at that time a regular informal exchange of vehicles with other OEMs who wanted a factory set up Elise loaner as reference for their performance-car development teams. Therefore we got all kinds of interesting high performance motor cars (and bikes) sent direct from OEMs for an evaluation exchange — typically they were for a couple of weeks swap. My PA used to try to arrange it such that we directors got to experience whatever was being provided for a day each. This was obviously after the development engineers had first dibs on the car. Important the real vehicle dynamics experts got to use and crawl over these cars exactly as they’d been set up and delivered by their manufacturer before the more senior but in my case much less talented wheelman, got our paws on them. Usually this was top end stuff from the well known sporting marques as they were begging a favour to get a well set up Elise — generally despite being performance cars these were very different to the Elise. Typically bigger heavier more complex.

However to the point raised by the author the Lotus Elise in my experience of diving the things (for what its worth) always stood up well as a fun drive even compared to the much more expensive exotica on the twisty stuff on public roads. But also in the Hethel track. While I don’t have the talent of the Lotus “test drivers” despite some of them coaching me through the formal tiers of Lotus internal driver development programme that taught not only how to drive a bit better to be more able to evaluate vehicles. From a low base admittedly and by the end still poorly among such exalted company but eye opening nevertheless.

Suffice to say having been through that and seeing these truly world class driving engineering talents develop ride and handling I tend to discount opinions from most folks who think they know how to drive and evaluate motor vehicles. Even many racers. I certainly know my own limitations! Motoring journalists despite having access to test cars and a media platform to opine don’t always cut the mustard either. I don’t know the author but even with my very realistic assessment of my relative lack of talent the experience from those car exchanges its an intriguing question he asks about would he be having less fun?!

One that becomes even more pertinent when Porsche say the new S/T is intended for road use, rather than the more track oriented GT3RS etc. Having been involved with Porsche to some degree on their race car programmes much later in my career, I certainly highly respect their engineers and admire their accomplishments and most of their products. The results on track and in the high performance road domain speak for themselves, nevertheless the authors comment specifically about Peugeot and Elise did jump out and give me pause for thought about just what enthusiast drivers should looking for to have fun on road. Particularly as when I was younger I used to own a diminutive Peugeot 205 GTI — one of the very first 1.6 litre examples registers in the UK — replaced by 1.9 litre version. They were hoot to drive on the road — the more nimble less powerful 1.6 more so than the 1.9 that replaced it. I’ve not driven the 106 author refers to on the road but expect it was similarly a lot of fun to drive on the road at real world speeds an in real world conditions. I defer to the true experts in matters of vehicle dynamics having had the privilege of working with some of the very best in the world. But I suppose for driving enjoyment on road, “less can be more”.

The talented Gordon Murray is proponent of lighter simpler vehicles himself owning many sub 1000kg. Hard to argue with that and it’s while difficult to achieve with the prevailing and ever increasing regulations Murray’s idol Colin Chapman’s famous philosophy is hard to argue with even if engineers can use technology to offset such fundamentals.

So in the context would he be having less fun in something like and Elise or a Peugeot 106? The fact I couldn’t get our driver Juan Pablo Montoya to relinquish the driving seat of a Peugeot 106 on a demo rally stage at Silverstone rally school during a corporate driving day event I was hosting for VIP guests suggests there is plenty fun and enough of a challenge to be had for even someone who remarkably held an overall F1 lap record for 14 straight years in a v10 BMW Williams. He was required to be there to give fast tyre-smoking laps around the GP circuit to VIP guests in M5 and M3 provided by BMW but when he found one of the other sessions we had had laid on in rotation was at the rally school at the perimeter he became a wheel-hog on the little front wheel drive Pug 106 rallye that I seem to recall was probably little modified as a starter-level school car — other than cage, extinguisher and knobbly tyres stock I’d guess.
Steve

[recarno]

Hello Steve, I agree with your comments 100%. Much more important than performance (horsepower) is low weight and small dimensions. Then you can still have a lot of fun on the road today - especially within the legally permitted framework. That's why I've owned an Alpine A110 (1080kg) for 5 years now and am very happy with it. A modern Porsche (e.g. Cayman) drives much safer at high speeds over 200 km/h - almost like on rails. But trains travel on rails and I've never enjoyed traveling by train. By the way, the new 992 ST is hyped here in Germany as THE 911 of modern times... Nevertheless: everyone as they please is well advised to be tolerant.

regards

Uwe

sorry for the double image - I can't manage to delete it

[911MRP]

Hi Uwe

I’m told Gordon Murray drives an Alpine A110 — he lives and works in Surrey England where there are a few decent roads when off the beaten track. While he is self confessed a huge fan of Chapman and Lotus having travelled from South Africa to get a job at Hethel it didn’t work out. He is too tall at 6ft 4ins to fit comfortably in an Elise otherwise I expect he’d have one or more of those in his collection of lightweight cars too

Steve

[recarno]

yes it is....

regards

uwe

gordon murray.jpg

[911MRP]

This is a little thing on www with Gorfon Murray that illustrates his philosophy.
https://youtu.be/Hg6VED1vQRw?si=sNbXXF-zqhxb6RqN
A few years ago when I was working as a senior advisor involved with McLaren I got an invitation to a private exhibition of his lifetime‘s work. A one time exhibition that was personally conducted for a handful or two of us by the great design talent himself — a whole afternoon masterclass.

That day in addition to his own cars (as featured in the clip) there were many other special road and race cars he’d been involved shipped in from collections around the world that had been put together for an important anniversary.

He is one of the few that is pushing back on the ever increasing weight and girth of modern car products.

This is a photo I took during my tour.
IMG_1537.jpg
The sign on the wall beneath the screen with the engineering drawing that Gordon Murray is pointing to sums up why the McLaren F1 road car is a high-point in automotive design


Also he hits the nail on the head in the attached film when describing his philosophy “simple, lightweight, purposeful”

While the Porsches like to one that is the subject of this thread are excellent and often well regarded they are not aligned to that thinking.

Would be interesting to see the results if Porsche encouraged their engineers to see what they could do in that regard.


I think the author original post’s article does pose a good question about having any less fun — especially if goal is driving enjoyment on today’s public roads in the hands of folks who are generally not as good at driving and understanding vehicle dynamics as they think they are.


Steve

[69Sman]

I've owned many, MANY iterations for Porsche for many years, from an amazing 356SC CAB, to an Alois Ruf restored 73RS, 89 Turbo Coupe, 89 Club Sport, 72S, 69S, etc....2018 GT2RS, A TRUE BEAST. Too much for the road.

I've owned every iteration of the GT3 from the 2004 996 to the current 992.1 GT3 w/PDK. Which I still own.

As well as a 2018 Speedster, also still in the stable.

Having driven the CRAP out of all of them, I can emphatically state that each generation of the GT3 gets better.

The 992 the best of all. With the double wishbone front end, the car just 'skips/glides' along the road. It actually and truly fells at least 500 pounds lighter then it actually is. It TOTALLY reminds of the RUF RS.

I get to each their own, but the new 992 is a truly amazing car. The Speedster, tho it may actually be lighter, doesn't drive anywhere near as well, especially the turn in and FEEL.....

[62S-R-S]

Dream of a modern car with a spartan interior...then wake up to reality


Int.jpg

[928cs]

Dream of a modern car with a spartan interior...then wake up to reality


Int.jpg

https://www.donkervoort.com/en/models/f22

or...
projectv-int2-64aea5d599fde.jpg
This one, I hope, will become a reality. This is my favourite electric car so far.