2013 Porsche 911 Carrera S, keeping the old dream alive: Motoramic Drives

For the last few years, I’ve been actively avoiding the opportunity to drive a Porsche 911. There’s a good reason for this, namely fear. Not of the car itself, but of that crushing feeling called disappointment.

Allow me to explain. I’m fortunate enough to park a used air-cooled 911 in my one-car garage, and that machine owns my heart. The last thing I’ve wanted to do is get emotionally seduced by a new-gen 911, which with its wider, longer stance, mod-cons and bank-vault build surely would make my beloved sports car feel like an old dog-mauled loafer. But it was time to suck it up and see what Porsche had wrought with a car that, with its recently notched 50th anniversary, has achieving nothing short of icon status.

The red 2013 911 Carrera S Coupe (priced at an eye-watering $98,900) that appeared at the door seemed to tiptoe in compared to my snorting 993. This would be a preview of civilized things to come, as the new 911 showed at every turn how the folks in Zuffenhausen have incorporated elements of other automotive success stories - the Cayenne’s practicality, Panamera’s panache and Cayman’s road manners - into their venerable flagship.

Change has come fast and furious to the 911 since Porsche broke with tradition after the last air-cooled 993 rolled off the assembly line in 1998. In the 15 years since, the car went through some growing pains (namely the 996’s slab-sided styling and uninspiring sound) until it found solid footing with the attractive, growling 997. But with the newest iteration, 2012’s 991, Porsche decided it was time to tweak a masterpiece. The car grew slightly longer, wider and shorter, the result of which is a noticeably more aggressive stance. Inside, the 991 borrowed heavily from Porsche’s four-door sedan, stealing its sloped center-stack and echoing its impressive finish. But I knew all these stats. It was time to experience them through the lens of the last great air-cooled 911.

Circling the car, the impact is immediate. Certainly the 991 hints at the lauded looks of the 993, but there is no mistaking the fact that the new design is taking this model in a new direction. Think GT, Grand Touring. It’s large and imposing, in the manner of an Aston Martin or Maserati. The spry little rear-engined dream that first appeared in 1963 seems like, well, a Volkswagen Beetle compared to the 991. There’s simply more car here, for better or for worse.

Hopping inside this new 911 is to enter a realm of luxury befitting a $100,000 vehicle. Leather is impeccably smooth, switchgear precise and shiny, and modern electronic gizmos plentiful. The seating position is noticeably different. Where for decades 911 owners sat tall in their seats, which really were almost like chairs, today’s 991 driver sits low. Not Ferrari-slouch, but there’s a deliberate effort being made here to make the motoring experience more sleek and menacing. For me, that led to an immediate ergonomic issue.

This Carrera S shockingly came with a seven-speed manual, which made the comparison to my 993 all the more direct. But the combination of the lowered seating position and the new, sloped center console meant that instead of dropping my right hand to find the shift knob in the palm of my hand, I found myself gripping the stalk of the shifter, with the knob just above my curled thumb. Not ideal. That yielded an added glitch: countless times the heel of my right hand would press down on the console and inadvertently hit the one button you really didn’t want to engage - the hazard lights. The only way to avoid this was to keep your shifting hand raised, which wasn’t natural.