Porsche First Drives

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  First Drive: 2014 Porsche Cayman S 1361293020

  A Blue-Blooded Valentine I need you to understand what it's like to drive this car. I'm not talking about your ability to comprehend the words on this page or process the figures that surround the 2014 Porsche Cayman S, but rather what it feels like to take control of a car conceived, designed, engineered and manufactured to set your prefrontal cortex ...

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  First Drive: 2013 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S 1351871820

  The 911 For The All-Season Sporting Playboy After our many drives of the new 991-generation Porsche 911 Carrera over the past 18 months, we've felt at times that this more gran turismo-like 911 with its wider tracks and 3.9 inches of extra wheelbase would be particularly well suited to an all-wheel-drive setup. And so we went, over stunning and sunny ...

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  First Drive: 2013 Porsche Cayenne Diesel [w/video] 1347897420

  Porsche Finally Brings North Americans An Oil Burner North American purists of the Porsche brand, those who broke into tears and sobbed when a sport utility vehicle and five-door hatchback joined their beloved automaker's lineup, are going to need to suck it up once again – diesel has arrived. While Europeans have been embracing and enjoying the ...

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  First Drive: 2013 Porsche Cayenne GTS [w/video] 1341503820

  Driving Emotion Triumphs Over Brute Horsepower Porsche has delivered more than 430,000 Cayenne sport utility vehicles since its introduction in 2003, which isn't bad for a company that only offered one model, the 911, less than two decades ago. The Cayenne has been such a success because it retains the automaker's basic DNA; all of its countless variants ...

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  Second Drive: 2013 Porsche Boxster S [w/video] 1338393420

  Seeking Porsche's Purest Sports Car In 1996 when Porsche only offered the 911 Carrera for sale, choosing its purest sports car was easy. But today, Porsche offers five different models and the answer is rather muddy. None of its high performance vehicles, from coupe to roadster and sedan to sport utility, are easily dismissed, as each is capable of ...

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  First Drive: 2013 Porsche Boxster S [w/video] 1331567820

  A Reminder To Drive After five days in Europe, I'm finally able to count the number of hours I've slept on both my hands and feet. I've been stuck in this sort of schmoozing fugue state for the past few days, part hapless journalist, part aimless wanderer. The Geneva Motor Show is over. Covered. Done. But my trip isn't even halfway through. There's one ...

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  First Drive: 2012 Porsche 911 Cabriolet [w/video] 1329929820

  A Soft Top Worthy Of The Best 911 Ever Gran Canaria is a volcanic nexus of disconnected associations, a bit of everything from a bit of everywhere. Geographically and geologically, this third largest of the Canary Islands belongs to Africa. Climatologically, it belongs to the Macaronesia Ecoregion. Its name is said to have come from an ancient ...

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  First Drive: 2013 Porsche Panamera GTS [w/video] 1328029020

  The Panamera That Can Win Over Purists The roads winding from the southernmost coast of Spain up to Ascari Race Resort near the town of Ronda are enough to bring telling tales out of any car that professes to have high performance intentions. What talented few acquit themselves well on these roads are then exposed to the 3.4-mile Ascari circuit, and ...

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  First Drive: Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid 2.0 1321376220

  A Flywheel-Equipped Race Car Leaves Us Whirring for More Spinning at 36,000 revolutions per minute just two feet from my right thigh, a 31-pound flywheel is screaming like a five-horsepower Shop-Vac with the filter removed. The sound pierces the composite shell of my racing helmet and drills through my form-fitted foam earplugs before painfully slamming ...

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  First Drive: 2012 Porsche 911 Carrera S [w/video] 1321030500

  Think Your Job Is Stressful? Try Redesigning The 911 The world's most iconic sports car, the Porsche 911, is redefined about every seven years. This is no easy feat, as each new model must not only conform to ever tightening emissions, fuel economy and safety regulations, but must be faster and more competitive in motorsports. The 911 remains one of the ...

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  First Drive: 2012 Porsche Panamera S Hybrid 1305820680

  Green Speed I had been anticipating the pre-dawn run to the airport for a few days. Having spent the week with a Porsche Panamera Turbo, complete with the torque-boosting Sport Chrono pack (yes, that one), the blast to SFO was a fitting sendoff. It was also perfectly timed. I was boarding a marathon flight to Austria for the global launch of the ...

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  First Drive: First Drive: 2011 Porsche Cayman R 1299776220

  Taking A Deep Breath Of R-ified Air Nearly every Porsche has a Sport button, and the 2011 Cayman R is no different. It quickens the PDK gearbox's shifts, tightens throttle response and allows a bit more slip. I should've paid more attention to those last two bits during our morning briefing. On the rain- and occasionally hail-battered island roads of ...

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  First Drive: 2011 Porsche 911 Speedster 1293123420

  It May Be Humpbacked, But It's No Quasimodo. It's rare. It's fast. It's expensive. Meet the 2011 Porsche 911 Speedster. First shown in October at the Paris Auto Show, the $204,400 humpbacked 911 arrives at U.S. dealerships early next year. On paper, the rear-wheel-drive 911 Speedster appears to be a heavily optioned 911 GTS Cabriolet, albeit one with ...

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  First Drive: 2011 Porsche Panamera conceals a V6 but gives up little else in the transplant 1278431880

  We're the lone vehicle in the far left lane of the Autobahn outside of Köln, Germany. The traffic has lightened, so we mash the accelerator to the floor. While we pull strongly up to about 200 km/h (about 125 mph), the speedometer counts much more slowly as it spins around the right side of the dial. Moments later, the digital indicator on the ...

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  First Drive: 2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder drops a weight class and hits harder than ever 1275926220

  The blueprint goes something like this: Take an aging sports car and raid the corporate parts bin for a few high-performance items likely stolen from a flagship model. Tweak the suspension tuning, throw on some wider rubber, pare down the standard features, add a smidgen more horsepower and then make a few cosmetic changes so it stands out on the ...

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  First Drive: 2011 Porsche Cayenne Turbo sheds 4,177 Twinkies - and it shows 1275062280

  Imagine, for a moment, that the Porsche engineering team has dropped 4,177 individually wrapped Twinkies on the lab floor. The yellow cream-filled sponge cakes are scattered shin-deep across the smooth ceramic tiles and kicked into the corners by technicians wearing white lab coats as more hit the floor. Individually, the cakes aren't very heavy. ...

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  First Drive: 2010 Porsche 911 Turbo is Stuttgart's quickest car yet 1257180960

  It's faster to 60 mph than a Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 or Ferrari Enzo. Porsche's fastest offerings, including the Carrera GT, GT2 and road-going 911 GT1 "Strassenversion" will only see its LED tail lamps during a typical sprint. Only the unlikely – make that incomprehensible – meeting of an SSC Ultimate Aero or Bugatti Veyron at a stop ...

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  First Drive: 2010 Porsche Panamera a 4-door sedan 78 years in the making 1245945300

  Porsche invited us to Germany to be one of the first to drive its all-new Panamera, the company's first four-door sedan. We spent three days assailing the Bavarian Alps, streaking across the German Autobahn, and meandering through picturesque Alpine towns. We touched 170 mph at one point and sat stagnant in city traffic during another. What were ...

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  First Drive: Sailing in Stuttgart with Porsche's Cayenne S Hybrid 1236700680

  While charging along at 85 mph with a particularly poker-faced Porsche engineer riding shotgun, traffic begins to cluster on the horizon. Not willing to risk our seven-figure prototype, I gently roll off the accelerator, at which point a funny thing happens: Without warning, the tachometer needle dies, unceremoniously plunging to zero RPM. The ...

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  First Drive: 2009 Porsche Boxster S with PDK 1233334680

  The Italian countryside passes by in a blur. At an indicated 265 km/h (164 mph), we have hit the invisible wall. The accelerator pedal has been jammed into the carpet for the last ten seconds, yet the sleek Porsche cannot push the molecules of air away any faster. Thanks to a stiff headwind, simple aerodynamic drag has overcome the 310 horsepower engine ...

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