Porsche 911 Turbo S // Up Jebel Hafeet

Schoolboy engineering suggests that the Porsche 911 just shouldn’t work. With all that mass hanging out behind the rear axle, any attempt at throwing the car through a tight corner would have you whipped round on yourself with you just hanging on as a bystander in the driving seat. Yet, the men at Porsche somehow have made this unique setup work and have spent the best part of the past 43 years honing this arrangement.

But even though the 911 is becoming a little too successful for its own good, and though there’s something very different about the type of person who buys a modern Carrera 4 compared to a 911 owner of old, there’s still something unique about driving the flagship Porsche.

I’ve been itching to give a Porsche 911 a thrashing for a while now. To be honest, it could have been any 911 – modern or old, and though I was kinda hoping to bag the keys to Phil’s 993 RS so I could really scare myself, the opportunity arose to get hold of the latest 911 in town – the $162k 911 Turbo S. With 530bhp boosted through all four wheels, this certainly was going to be a bit of a giggle.

Now, you’ll be forgiven if you’ve lost track with all the various iterations of Porsche 911 that are currently on sale. At the last count, there are the best part of 20 different variations. Personally, I see the Turbo S as the top of the 911 for those who like the thought and the look of driving around in a 911. This is as opposed to the proper full-on hardcore models in the line-up – the GT3s, 2s and RSs of the world.

Still, ignoring the Turbo S as a poseur’s special would be foolhardy – after all, this is the fastest accelerating 911 in modern time. A 0-100kph time of 3.3secs is frankly insane for a car that’s fully loaded with all the toys and fineries you’d expect. Here there’s air-con, sat-nav, stereo – plus leather on all surfaces – you don’t have to endure sitting in the middle of a web of scaffolding and sing to yourself in traffic to keep yourself amused here. Plus, with the PDK box – with proper paddles thankfully, just about anyone with a heavy enough right foot could reel off the acceleration run in the allotted time.

To see quite what the net effect of all that power had on the 911, we headed south out of Dubai to Al Ain to give the Turbo S a good run at Jebel Hafeet. The 7.3km-long stretch of tarmac that snakes its way up to the peak is a serious test of metal and the dolt behind the wheel. The concrete barriers that line the road bear the marks of countless over-enthusiastic cornering attempts and I’ve had cars overheat on me less than halfway up the run.

My initial impressions of the Turbo S stem from its absolutely brutal acceleration capabilities. It just storms off the line with consummate ease, which certainly caught me out on the first few minutes after I’d picked the car up. It probably wasn’t helped by the fact that I’d done what every self-respecting motoring journalist does when they first jump into a car – put every setting on the most harsh and brutal. Naturally, that didn’t exact endow the 911 with the greatest driving characteristics in traffic, so I quickly dialled everything back to sensible and settled into the long cruise down to Al Ain.

What always strikes me about cars like the Turbo S is how they can be crazed machines hell-bent on ripping your arms out of your sockets when you’re on it, but become an absolute doddle to drive when you want to relax. Supercars of yore never had this kind of duality – they just beat you to a pulp even if you’re nipping out for a pint of milk.

But not here, I fired up the iPod, flicked on the cruise control and let the ever-so-prompt German sat-nav lady take care of the directions. An hour or so later we rocked up at the last petrol station in town to top up the tank, before hitting Hafeet itself.

The road lulls you into a false sense of security as the early corners are wide-open sweepers with decent view ahead. I make the most of using all the road available to take the curves, but always made sure I held something back. It’s been a while since I’ve been up the road, therefore I’m a little bit rusty as to what the sequence of turns is. And believe me, there’s nothing worse than piling into a curve that you think is going to open up into a nice straight, only to find that it tightens into an off-camber hairpin.

At least the Turbo S comes as standard with Porsche’s monster carbon ceramic brakes which are more than capable of bringing the 1585kg weight of the car to a halt without too much drama.

Thankfully, traffic was all but non-existent on Hafeet so we didn’t cause too much of a nuisance as we performed run after run through some of the more complex stretches. It’s difficult to get into a decent rhythm on Hafeet – corners at first glance might call for second gear, but I soon find myself running out of revs and having to shift up at non-ideal moments. Therefore, it’s usually better to come in a little bit hotter in third and let the 516lb ft of torque haul the car up the hill.

Unsurprisingly, the Turbo S was mega mega fun up and down the hill, and stood up well to the incessant hard driving. Even a few attempts at using the savage launch control – which sees the Turbo S show very little mechanical sympathy for itself – caused no alarm bells to ring in the cabin.

But the most striking thing of all about the Turbo S is its insatiable appetite for speed – and we have two speeding tickets to prove it, sorry Porsche! Give it enough room and it’ll reach the heady heights of 315kph – an utterly mind-bending number. The car just romps up to silly figures without even trying. As previously noted, this 911 will hit 100kph in 3.3secs, and crack 160kph (100mph) from standstill in just 7.1secs. What’s perhaps most telling about this car is the fact that it’ll accelerate from 80-120kph in just 2.0secs thanks to all that lovely turbocharged torque.

Dynamically, it’s got the usual direct 911 steering, feels absolutely planted thanks to Porsche’s Torque Vectoring system which sends different amounts of power to each rear wheel as it sees fit, and is remarkably easy to drive hard and fast. Though there’s a teeny bit of turbo lag to get around and you have to reprogram your brain to adjust to the acceleration capabilities, it’s a supercar for all people.

However, for me the Turbo S lacks that hard, slightly dangerous edge that a proper supercar should be endowed with. The exhaust note is nothing to write home about and some of the visual additions to the S look a bit too aftermarket for my tastes. As the ultimate 911 to be seen in, then you can’t really go far wrong with the Turbo S. But for ultimate thrills and driving involvement, I’d much rather look at a Porsche that wears an RS badge. In white. With red wheels. And ridiculous graphics down the side. That’ll do nicely. And as an added bonus, the 911 GT3 RS is a cool $26k cheaper than the Turbo S.

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Sami Sasso
October 21, 2010 3:24 pm

Very nice read!
I’ve been up Jebel Hafeet a few times myself, but unfortunately I was driving cars such as a Toyota Land Cruiser, a Honda Civic and a Nissan Sunny. Nevertheless that didn’t stop me from enjoying that drive. I can only imagine how much fun you had in the Porsche on such a beautiful road!

Porsche 911 Turbo S // Up Jebel Hafeet

Tom Bird

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