2024 Porsche 911

DETROIT - The first Porsche press car I ever drove was a 2012 Cayman R. Porsche has been charging customers extra for the privilege of owning less car for decades, but even back then, the R’s proposition felt a bit egregious — at least until I drove it. Apart from the fact that it was an AC-delete build that I was loaned during a wicked Washington, D.C., heat wave, it remains to this day one of the best cars I’ve ever driven. Those carbon buckets. Mercy. When Porsche announced a couple of years ago that it would yet again be applying the strip-down treatment to the base 911, I opted to keep an open mind. There’s no back seat, after all. It’s basically a GT3 — my Goldilocks Porsche — without the kickass engine. OK, not really, but hey, it’s a 911. Even with the standard 379-horsepower flat-six, how bad can it possibly be? Porsche sent us a solid enthusiast-spec tester, with few options, virtually all of them necessary. And since this came with a stick-shift, it’s about as light as a roadgoing 911 can get from the factory. Porsche says that the T checks in at 3,254 pounds before options. The front axle lift and rear steer add about 20 kg — just under 45 pounds — between them. Worth it. Then there are the LED matrix headlamps. OK, they’re not necessary, and at $4,150 they are eye-wateringly expensive for a headlight upgrade, but they are quite nice to have, as is the extended-range fuel tank. Heck, at $230, that’s practically free, as is the heated GT-style steering wheel at $280. The Python green interior/exterior bits cost $10,000 alone against a $138,830 MSRP (2023 pricing). Remember, a base 911 is a $115,000 proposition these days. Kick the snakeskin finish to the curb and this thing seems almost reasonable. Python isn’t for the shy. If you want to keep a low profile, this ain’t the way. I wouldn’t marry it, either, but pulling my orange Cadillac out of the garage to make way for a green 911 felt right. That said, I can’t help but notice that they also offer it in yellow … There are only a handful of good roads near Detroit, but I skip the usual ones when I have a 911, opting instead to go see something I haven’t seen yet. It’s a grand tourer, after all. Last time, I took a drive down a now-forgotten indigenous trail; this go-around, I opted to explore Detroit’s southern ‘burbs, or in the regional colloquial, I went downriver. From my home on the border of Detroit’s western extremities, there are no curvy backroads between me and my destination. In fact, this tour would be more grueling than grand in parts. I could take the freeway or Wayne County’s wide avenues. I opted to start with the latter and return via the former. A proper, varied testing loop. You probably have a Telegraph Road where you live, but Mark was …
Hide Full Review