The latest 911 Turbo S does what 911 Turbos have always done, it just does everything better and faster.
This review has been updated with test results.
It's happened before, but it's been a while. You see, C/D testers tend to acclimate to hard acceleration. Seat time in Teslas, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and AMGs will do that. Our inner ears take so much violent g-force abuse that even monstrously quick begins to feel perfectly normal.
And then a 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S shows up and hits the reset button. Launch control and 640 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque— improvements of 60 horses and 37 pound-feet over the outgoing model—turn up the acceleration. The time to 30 mph is 0.9 seconds, that’s the power to pull out into traffic pretty much as late as you like. Stay in it and 60 mph passes in just 2.2 seconds—making it one of the quickest cars we've ever tested to that mark—with 100 mph coming in 5.3 seconds. It comes so close to dipping into the 9s in the quarter-mile with a 10.1-second run at 137 mph.
HIGHS: Big numbers on the speedo, launch control is hysterical, easily exploited grip.
To get those times requires engaging launch control. It’s as easy as turning the drive mode knob on the steering wheel to Sport or Sport Plus. Stop the car. Hold the brake with your left foot and hold down the accelerator with the right until the engine revs to 5000 rpm. Look as far down the road as you can before releasing the brake, and whooaa. Keep it floored for 21.4 seconds and you’ll be going 180 mph.
Previously we wrote about being astonished by the Turbo’s acceleration on a short two-lane on-ramp just over the Los Angeles River, east of Hollywood. Pointed down the straight part of the ramp the Turbo S called up 94 mph in about the time that you’d expect to see about 60. In testing, we found that 90 mph takes only 4.3 seconds, which would be a respectable 60-mph time for a sporty car. The Turbo’s acceleration upends expectations and reality. The last time expectations and reality were this tweaked was about a decade ago, and we were behind the wheel of a Bugatti Veyron.
LOWS: Firm enough to buck you out of the seat, 911 Turbos have always been expensive.
Providing that bump is a heavily revised version of Porsche's twin-turbo flat-six that shares its basic architecture with the 3.0-liter engine in the workaday Carrera and Carrera S models. Although it's a new family of engines, the new Turbo's flat-six has the same bore dimension as before, while a slightly shorter stroke drops its displacement to 3.7 liters, compared with 3.8 on the previous-gen Turbo and Turbo S. But not to worry, as there's more than enough boost to make up for it—22.5 psi, in fact. The intercoolers are 12 percent larger and are fed cooling air more efficiently than before, through both the nostrils in the rear fenders and by two large vents in the rear decklid. ...
