Vehicle on test

Porsche 911

Overall:

It has to be borne in mind that at £65,820 for the 911 Carrera S tested here, Zuffenhausen's finest though not fastest - that label is reserved for the ultra high-tech Carrera GT - there just isn't anything out there which can compete on a level playing field.

The 21st century 911 is as sophisticated as the original car was simple, as predictable at the limit as the original was edgy but its looks are still classical. Park a 2006 Carrera S next to a 1970s 2.7 Carrera and the shared bloodline is patently obvious. Porsche's reasoning behind that - if it ain't broke don't fix it, but by all means improve it and that has been done over the years by a process of steady evolution.

The new car, amazingly, shares just 20 per cent of its parts with the outgoing 996 model but even that smacks of evolution rather than revolution and a walk around the car identifies a raft of changes which are as subtle as they are numerous and climbing into the cockpit underlines the changes which have been wrought and all, it has to be said, for the better.

In spite of a complete redesign of the interior, the 911's facia still has a disorganised and illogical layout if you climb into it straight out of a BMW or a Jaguar. Unlike older 911s, though, finding for vital functions isn't a matter of feeling around under the dash and twiddling something until you get what you want. The new five-instrument binnacle relays a huge amount of information to the driver, including oil temperature and pressure via gauges which are usually hidden behind the steering-wheel rim but the biggest, clearest and most central instrument is the one that matters - the rev counter because in the Carrera S revs mean rapidity. Road speed is presented twice, by a digital read-out in the rev counter face and an analogue instrument, just in case you don't believe you're actually going that fast at first glance.

In the S, driver and passenger get wider and more widely adjustable, electrically-powered seats than those in the base Carrera, which lack lumbar supportand suffer from shortness in the seat cushion which can be purgatory for taller drivers on long trips. Although height and reach adjustable, the three-spoke leather and alloy steering wheel's range of movement might be tad too restricted for some and the glovebox is tiny but, happily, supplemented by cubby holes and storage spaces which can accommodate standard in-car detritus and the boot is just big enough to accommodate two soft holdalls . Picky? Possibly, but it's all beautifully fitted together and impeccably made.

On the move, the throttle pedal has a long action and the clutch has firm feel and the superb six-speed manual gearbox - the best ever fitted to any 911 - has a wonderfully machined feel about its movement between ratios. Mechanical grip is there by the shedload and it makes the 911, driven properly, almost entirely unstickable. The big, wide 19-inch Michelins grip like leeches, the brakes are stupendous - you rarely have to really stand on them such is their massive efficiency - and the car's traction out of corners, both slow and medium-speed, has to be experienced to be be believed.

Then there's the performance. The all-new 3.8-litre Carrera S unit boasts variable lift camshafts and variable valve timing which helps it thrive on revs while delivering 350bhp and a whopping 295lb.ft of torque, which is more than enough of both to propel the 1420K Carrera S to 182mph, where legal, and whistle from 0-62mph in well under five seconds.

Every time the 911 has been revamped, re-designed or merely tweaked over five decades, the perennial doubters have been proved wrong by Porsche's philosophy and the attention to detail applied to the job by design and engineering teams who have taken one of the world's most invigorating and incolving sports cars and somehow made it even better every time.

You know what? They've only gone and done it again.

Report by Mike Tremlett