911 Turbo S

THE pinnacle of all roadgoing Porsches is the mighty GT2RS. Dubbed the 'widow-maker', the GT2RS is the collective sum of all things insane, with a turbocharged 3.6-litre, flat-six engine hanging aft of the rear axle, the GT2RS offered 620hp and 700Nm of torque channelled to the rear wheels only.

A true modern day David versus Goliath story for any driver who dares to drive it; the GT2RS needs a driver of superhuman skill to fully exploit its potential. But despite all its might, the GT2RS is based on this, the Porsche 911 Turbo.

Extremely quick and a true brute once upon a time, the 911 Turbo S has now matured to be a car that can take on the likes of an Lamborghini Aventador or a Ferrari F12, but with comfort levels that can match a Bentley Continental GT.

I know it is hard to believe, even I was shocked after driving it around Sepang International Circuit for a few laps, but it really has become a car that just about anyone with some supercar experience can handle.

The exterior of the new Turbo S looks like any other modern 991 Porsche 911, but is distinguished by the flared fenders to accommodate the wider tyres, then there is the massive pop-up rear wing, a few air scoops here and there that help cool the twin-turbo engine, and of course there are the usual options you can opt for like LED headlights, bigger rims, carbon ceramic brakes, some bodywork, and the lot that helps the car look better.

Performance figures however remains the same even if you tick all the option boxes. The interior is the same as all other 991 models and feels well built, comfortable and elegant even.

Of course all this depends on what you opt for in the options list, but you would not be left disappointed. So the essentials; the new Turbo S is powered by a 3.8-litre, flat-six, twin-blown engine that sends a galactic 560hp and a tarmac folding 750Nm of torque!

For the uninitiated, that is enough power to catapult you to 100km/h in just 3.1 seconds, though some independent tests have claimed that the new Turbo S actually accelerates a few hundreds of a second quicker than Porsche's official claim.

As you can probably imagine, it takes all four-wheels to put down all that power, which is then transmitted to the road by a 7-speed Porsche twin-clutch gearbox, officially called the Porsche Doppelkupplung (PDK), and wheel slip is managed by the Porsche Traction Management (PTM).

Keeping your foot down in the new Turbo S takes some effort as the horizon charges at you quicker than your brain can fathom, and as such the rev needle tends to bounce off the rev limiter a lot quicker as well. The experience requires you to be at your finest and in tune with the car while keeping your eyes on the road and your ears tuned to the engine.

Manage that and time your gearshifts perfectly and you hit 100km/h in 3.1 seconds, 160km/h in 6.8 seconds, 200km/h in 10.3 seconds, and then you arrive at the 318km/h top speed quicker than it will take you to read this entire paragraph. It is acceleration like you can not imagine, but it is refined, seemingly controlled, it does not shock you into an error and neither does it feel like it wants to murder you.

Which is impressive for a turbocharged Porsche. On the Sepang straight, I saw 237km/h and dropped anchor at 70 metres before turning in to Turn One. The professional Porsche drivers who were flown in to keep a leash on us motoring journalists and our limited skills were pushing about 250km/h and were braking past 50 metres, before doing it all over again for an entire week.

A salute to Porsche's legendary robustness and reliability. I expected the Turbo S to scare the wits out of me, but my limited driving skills managed to tuck the entire package into a corner without bothering the balance of the car.

There were times where the Turbo S tended to wiggle its wide rear end, especially in off camber turns, but there was never a point where it felt overwhelming, unmanageable or scary.

Maybe it was because of the new rear-wheel-steering system which guides the rear wheels in the opposite direction to aid handling or perhaps it was due to the pop-up rear wing generates over 130kg of downforce, but refinement, control and poise was the order of the day for the Turbo S.

Do not get me wrong, the Turbo S is seriously quick, you cannot relax in a car that has so much power and enough torque to power a small tug boat, because if you do, it will be like riding a missile seconds before detonation.

It is lethal and you should be at your best when behind the wheel of the Turbo S, but unlike Porschesof yesterday which took every opportunity to scare you, the new pinnacle of the 911 family lets you relax, take it easy, it even coaxes you to just let go and chill, smoke a cigar while you drive even. But like a good friend, it is there when you want it to be, with more firepower than you will ever need.

There are questions about how there are faster cars than the Turbo S, cars like the Lamborghini Aventador, Ferrari F12, Pagani Huayra, all of which are more flashes well. But at just RM1.75 million for the basic car before options, the asking price is seemingly pittance when you compare the RM3 million asking price for the Aventador or F12. And a lot more for the likes of the Huayra.

You could also argue that there is the Nissan GT-R which is possibly the only other everyday supercar, and which is also cheaper and faster in some sense. But the Porsche is a lot more elegant, and much more of a status symbol than a Nissan can ever be, and that officially makes the new Turbo S the ultimate everyday supercar money can buy today.

On the topic of the GT2RS, Porsche has denied that there will be a new 991 based GT2 model. But after driving the Turbo S and realising how easy and manageable it is, we do not believe the Germans.

Porsche has always been about building hardcore driving machines, and the new 918 Spyder hybrid hypercar aside, there is a GT2 shaped void in Porsche's line-up because, well, the world needs and wants wild Porsches, and the company has always been more than happy to oblige.

We're calling your bluff Porsche, bring on the GT2 already.