911 & Porsche World Magazine

Every so often, Porsche uses the 911 Turbo to tell us where the company is heading. The 930, revealed in 1974, brought turbocharging from the 917/10 and 917/30 Can-Am programmes to the road at a time forced induction was still regarded as exotic and faintly dangerous. The 3.3-litre Turbo added an intercooler. The 993 Turbo introduced twin turbochargers and all-wheel drive. The 996 Turbo carried the model into the water-cooled era with a ‘Mezger’ engine drawn from Le Mans. The 997 Turbo arrived with variable turbine geometry, a first for any petrol engine. In every case, the technology looked startling on announcement, though unremarkable within a decade.

The new 911 Turbo S continues the pattern. Its T-Hybrid system exists for performance, not economy, drawing on thinking developed for the 919 Hybrid (a compact 1.9kWh battery feeding two electrically assisted turbochargers and a motor within PDK). The result is 701bhp, making this the most powerful production 911 yet built, and a car dispatching turbo lag altogether.

Some readers will note the eighty-five kilograms added by T-Hybrid. Some will question the point of 701bhp on the road. Both objections are fair, and both deserve testing. Our verdict starts on page 10.