New-Age 911

The more Porsche’s 911 changes, the more it stays the same. By design.

Four years ago, Porsche held a 40th birthday party for the 911 in Nashville and displayed one of the first-year models just outside the entrance of the Hermitage Hotel. But people coming and going walked past instead of stopping to examine the car. Trouble was, it looked like it might be a 5-year-old model, not a 40-year-old one.

That’s how similar the new 911 is to the first one. The version I test-drove was a Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Targa, but by whatever name, the technology under that recognizable shape has continued to improve.

For example, the rear engine still operates with pistons located in a flat plane, opposed to each other on either side of the crankshaft. That makes a low, compact package, good for stability, that now measures 3.8 liters in displacement—still small by sports-car standards, but amazingly potent, with 355 horsepower and 295 foot-pounds of torque. Dual overhead camshafts, variable timing on the four valves atop each combustion chamber, and a sophisticated engine-management system extract optimum power.

The beauty of any Porsche is that its performance seems to exceed the sum of its high-performance parts. And it all comes out in a distinctive, chill-producing snarl whenever you hit the throttle. The superb suspension and brakes make it respond like an extension of your personality. The Tiptronic automatic transmission is race bred, but my test car had a manual six-speed—the way God intended a Porsche to be driven. An autobahn or a race track would be where the car was intended to be driven, with its 200 mph speedometer. But my guess is it wouldn’t go much over 185. Of course, it would probably go 185 all day long.

All of that technology commands a stiff price, of course. But for uncompromising car fanciers who happen to live in the snow belt, the new Carrera 4S Targa has something special. The “S” in the name is for sports handling, and the “4” is for all-wheel drive. Yes, the Porsche sports car handles the tightest turns with all four wheels pulling their fair share, and while it wasn’t necessarily intended for bounding through axle-deep snow, it can do exactly that. (It helped that the low-profile high-speed tires on my test model had been replaced with my favorite Nokian WR low-profile all-season tires.

Minnesota’s final April blizzard hit during the week I had the car, and together, we never spun a wheel.)

In combined city-highway driving, I got 20 mpg; on a cruise-control highway trip, that bumped up to 25.1. So if you want a vehicle that displays stature and timeless flair, but one that gets decent fuel economy and can churn its way home in the foulest of weather, the glass-roofed 2007 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Targa meets every requirement—with the spillover effect of neatly handling any semblance of midlife crisis.