Porsche to update 911 for 2008


If we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times: the Porsche 911 is the iconic, staple sports car. So when Stuttgart rolls out a revision, however minor, it's headline news. And the latest reports indicate that the 2008 911 will feature a few revisions, as the current version has been on the market for four years already.

Don't expect anything drastic in the styling department, as the 911's design progression has fallen squarely in the evolutionary, not revolutionary category. And once again, we can forecast that only automotive enthusiasts and Porshephiles with a keen eye will be able to differentiate the new model from the old. Expect a bigger air intake in the front fascia and new tail-lights. Since Porsche designers appear to be hyperconservative when it comes to tinkering with the 911's overall look, that should be about the extent of the visible changes.

Pop the hood and...well, you can never see much under the hood of a 911, anyway, but rest assured there will be changes. We swear. For starters, as backwards as it may seem to derive technology from a sport-ute into a sports-car, the new direct-injection engines that debuted in the latest Cayenne will be turned around and shoehorned into the back of the 911. Porsche is claiming that will net a 10-15% improvement in fuel economy, which of course is the first consideration for most Porsche buyers – read previous with sarcasm – and a power increase of five to twenty-five horsepower across the range. The bigger news is the replacement of the lackluster and outmoded Tiptronic automatic gearbox with a dual-clutch transmission, like its cousins from the VW Group. That should help close the gap between the clutch-full and clutch-less versions, and we'd predict an accompanying spike in sales of auto/Tiptronic/DSG versions as compared to their stick-shift counterparts.

Of course, with so many variations in the 911 line-up, this means we get to look forward to new Carreras, Cabrios, Targas, Turbos, GT3s and a whole lot more.

[Source: Motor Authority]

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