Porsche 911 Carrera 4S: Review

Car and Driver have got a very encouraging article about the 911 Carrera 4S. Its good to see how successful the 911 range is, and will be; with the introduction of the 911 Turbo.

Porsche’s 911 is constantly undergoing a bacterium-like evolution that yields many different variations and growth. Now, comparing a 911 to bacteria might seem a tad uncouth, but we have put them up against Corvettes, so it’s not entirely unprecedented. That’s a joke — lighten up. In any case, life would be pretty unbearable without friendly bacteria, Corvettes, and 911s.

For 2005, rear-wheel-drive 911s received a freshening that left few aspects of the vehicle unmodified. The chassis, the powertrain, and the interior and exterior styling were all given a once-over. All-wheel-drive variants had to wait a year for the alterations, but they’ve now arrived, and the extra traction requires almost no sacrifice in performance.

The Carrera 4S we spent a couple of weeks with, wished we owned, wrote Santa about, and tested came equipped with the sweet-sounding 355-hp, 3.8-liter flat-six introduced in the 2005 Carrera S. A trip to the track revealed the 4S couldn’t quite match the acceleration times of the two-wheel-drive model tested in November 2004 — 4.1 seconds to 60 mph versus 4.3 seconds for the 4S — but it did match the performance of the 911 Carrera S pitted against an Aston Martin V-8 Vantage (“Working Exotics,” March 2006). The slightly slower times, compared with the faster Carrera S, could be due to the all-wheel-drive model’s extra friction and 138 pounds, or it might just be due to production variation. One thing is certain, the 4S didn’t suffer from the severe axle hop — rear tires slip and scramble for traction sending shudders throughout the car — that plagues two-wheel-drive 911s subjected to a hard launch. The all-wheel-drive system alleviates axle hop by sending up to 40 percent of the power to the front wheels. If you get in an argument about which accelerates faster, the rear-drive S or the 4S, fall back on the fact that the 4S doesn’t lose as much of its accelerative capability when the road is wet or snow-covered.

Related news: GermanCarBlog, P4MR, Porsche 911 4S

Source: Car and Driver, picture from Porsche

Porsche 911 Carrera 4S: Review

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