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2009 Porsche 911 Carrera: From Deutschland with Love.
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![At nearly 50-years-old, the hallmark Porsche shows some softness, while dialing up its size, performance and efficiency. By <a href="http://sharpformen.com/author/bradley-horn/">Bradley Horn</a><div id='nr_fo_top_of_post'></div><p>Every time Porsche decides to launch a new generation of its hallmark 911 we get all fidgety. In a world where ever-encroaching CO2, safety and fuel economy regs try to bleed all the thrill out of driving, can zee boys in Stuttgart keep the magic, the soul, of their sports car alive?</p>
<p>Take a breath. Relax. The seventh generation Porsch—coded 991 internally by the boffin—is still just about the most pleasant or poised six-figure coupe on the planet. That said, like anyone creeping up on their 50th birthday, there’s some softness around the middle showing up on the 911 for the first time.</p>
<p>Effectively, it becomes a two-door version of Porsche’s own Panamera sedan—as able to play the composed, comfortable grand touring (GT) car as it is to play the hooligan—depending on which button you press. Now more than ever, the computers controlling its myriad of drive systems determine the 911’s attitude.</p>
<p>The new Carrera ($93,700) and the more powerful Carrera S ($110,000) don’t really show their Teutonic-bred talents until the best optional, high-tech gear is added (along with those amazingly strong ceramic brakes). It’s all built around the 911′s seven-speed Doppelkupplungsgetriebe (or PDK, if it’s easier) dual-clutch automatic gearbox. It’s the magic wand that works wonders with all of the car’s computerized systems: like the PASM (Porsche Active Stability Management) active suspension, Porsche Torque Vectoring (PTV) for the rear wheels, the Sport Chrono Package and the all-new Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control (PDCC) system borrowed from the Cayenne SUV, which uses sensors and hydraulics to keep the coupe ironing-board flat in a bend</p>
<p>With these gadgets switched to ‘normal,’ the Carrera is neutral and classy—the Swiss banker of sports cars, if you will—but punch the ‘Sport Plus,’ button, which comes with said Sport Chrono Package, and the ones and zeros buried in the 911’s circuitry get all zesty, the wider spoiler rears up, the exhaust roars to life and the Carrera suddenly remembers it can get you go down the road with highly illegal speed and stomach-churning agility.</p>
<p>Make no mistake, improving the Carrera’s fuel economy was a big part of its redesign. It wasn’t all about handling. New lightweight aluminum parts, including the roof, cut weight 45 kg (100 lbs.) and lower the centre of gravity for better handling. The wheelbase has been stretched 100 millimetres and the front wheels are 50 mm farther afield, meaning more stability at speed and sharper turn-ins.</p>
<p>The Carrera offers the world’s first seven-speed manual gearbox in a passenger car, mainly as a way to satiate purists in North America where more buyers than anywhere else prefer to row their own gears. That, and the tall seventh gear pumps up fuel economy.</p>
<p>The base flat-six engine with direct injection shrinks from 3.6-litres to 3.4-litres, though it manages to make five more horsepower (350) and the same torque (287 lb-ft) as last year. Mate it with said PDK gearbox and an impressive 8.2 L/100 km fuel economy average result, along with a slightly faster 0-100 km/h sprint of 4.4 seconds. Impressive.</p>
<p>Carrera S models hang on to the 3.8L flat-six from 2011, but it muscles up 15 hp and 15 lb-ft, to an even 400 and 325, respectively. Stuttgart says it’ll hustle to 100 km/h in just 4.1 sec.</p>
<p>Both models get electro-mechanical steering for the first time, which sadly doesn’t speak as eloquently to your palms as past hydraulic setups – once a Porsche trademark. It was done to take load off the engines and save a smidgen of fuel.</p>
<p>Behind the scenes, Porsche has reworked how the 911 handles engine heat, found ways to recuperate volts from its electrics, added a start/stop system for the first time on its sports cars and put a “coasting function” on the PDK transmission that will disengage the engine from the transmission to save fuel. It’s all stuff we’ve seen from other automakers before, but adds up to a quoted (and impressive) 16 percent improvement in average fuel economy.</p>
<p>If the way the new 911 drives is not enough to earn it a ‘Grand Touring’ badge, the new cabin will. What once was a Spartan space in years of yore has evolved into an intimate and highly-cosseting place to perch. Fit, finish and materials here have reached the levels of top-drawer luxury cars. A partial leather interior with handsome stitching and an alcantara roofliner are now standard, as is new seven-inch touchscreen with navigation and an electronic parking brake switch. Options again range from a heated mahogany steering wheel, to leather-covered air vents and a symphonic Burmester Sound System. Outfitting a 911 to the level of something as sumptuous as rivals like the $130,000 dollar Mercedes-Benz SL would not be difficult.</p>
<p>The redesigned seats offer slightly more fore-aft adjustment, as does the steering wheel. As a result, the 911 does rock one of the best driving positions we’ve ever encountered (you could drive this Carrera with your elbows duct-taped to your love handles if you needed to, and the Porsche would still find a way to make you comfortable). The ignition, of course, remains at left, as a nod to motorsports, says Porsche, but as a way to remind owners just how cool their ride is, says we. The five-gauge setup returns as well, but a new LCD pod appears left of the centralized tachometre to show radio and sat-nav info.</p>
<p>Not a single line or radius has been left unchanged on the Carrera though it maintains the so-called “Porsche flyline” – that characteristic rear-sloping roof. Standard bi-xenon headlights and pencil thin all-LED taillights have been added. Overall, the 911 grew only 56 millimetres longer for 2012. The standard wheels become 19-inchers on the Carrera and 20s on the ‘S.’</p>
<p>So legislation and the changing taste of consumers are partly the cause of the 911′s slight softening of attitude for 2012. If it’s any consolation, it’s a path pretty much all pedigreed sports cars have taken in recent years. Remember, though, that the new car is 14 seconds faster around Germany’s Nurburgring circuit than the old model – a lifetime in motorsport terms – and the pants-wettingly quick Turbo variant is coming.</p>
<p><em>The 2012 Porsche 911 Carrera goes on sale in Canada in February, but will first appear at the Camp4 Canada Experience in January. <a href="http://www.porsche.com/canada/" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.porsche.com']);">porsche.com/canada</a></em></p>
<div id='nr_fo_bot_of_post'></div> <span id="pty_trigger"></span> The 2012 Porsche 911 Carrera: Middle Age Spread](http://sharpformen.com/wp-content/gallery/2012-porsche-991/p11_0600-resized.jpg)