2023 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS: owner review
When my wife heard that I had my heart set on getting a Porsche 911 GTS, she initially tried to talk me out of it.
Owner: Happy Owner
Porsche is very old school. Since it started making the 911 some 60 years ago, it has insisted on shoving the engine in the back.
Sure, it had to move with the times and increasingly strict regulations on emissions and noise, but it has steadfastly and obstinately stuffed the rear end of the 911 with iterations of the iconic flat-six. From air-cooled engines to the first water-cooled versions and, starting from the 991 generation, turbocharging the entire flat-six range (sans the GT variants), every 911 has had its engine in its backside.
And from this interesting quirk, there have been stories of just how twitchy a 911 can be. Some have termed this unique driving characteristic ‘the widow maker’. It didn’t help that Paul Walker died in a Porsche. Oh, so did James Dean.
When my wife heard that I had my heart set on getting a Porsche 911 GTS, she initially tried to talk me out of it. And later when she realised how serious I was about the whole exercise, she threw her hands up in exasperation and asked whether I had topped up my life insurance instead.
Luckily for me, the 992 generation of Porsche’s 911 is perhaps the most genteel, the most refined and, dare I say, most manageable version that has left the assembly line at Stuttgart since its inception. The engine has been moved closer to the rear axis and is now almost like a mid-engined layout, not unlike its Boxster or Cayman younger siblings.
Admittedly, I have not spent a lot of time behind the wheel of my 911 GTS, as upon delivery in June 2023 I immediately drove the car up from Alexandria to Artarmon to get it PPF’ed. There it sat for five days before I had a chance to collect it and bring it home. And then, barely three days later, I was on a flight back to Singapore, where I work.
However, in that short time I had with my 911, I walked away convinced that this car was everything the marketing spiel said it was, and much more.
The first thing that gets you when you turn the ignition starter on and hear that flat six come to life is just how vocal the engine sounds, which shouldn’t come as a surprise as the engine sits behind you. It almost feels like a Dolby surround-sound system with all its subwoofers turned on and you can feel every vibration on your skin. I can’t quite tell whether that tingling is due to the soundwaves from the engine bay or just the excitement of being seated behind the wheel of the 911, but who the hell cares.
Pottering around the neighbourhood, I have seen just how this car attracts eyeballs. Unfortunately, there are far too many speed humps along the back roads, and so I have to slow down and wait for the front axle lift to activate (it takes a few seconds and it can be GPS pre-programmed) before crossing them. This is the perfect opportunity for the 911 to be seen and appreciated. I’ve had pedestrians and strangers flashing me a thumbs-up, which is way better than them showing me the middle finger for driving like an old fogey.
I did get a chance to take the 911 up the expressway (twice), and I can see why owners, reviewers and YouTubers worth their page views wax lyrical about the daily useability of this car. It’s surefooted, easy to point and place, and the visibility is excellent despite the GTS having the Sports version of Porsche’s Active Suspension Management (PASM), which is 10mm lower than standard.
Because the car is quite low to the ground, ingress and egress aren’t the most elegant of movements to be expected from a middle-aged man who’s had one Fosters too many, and whose midriff oftentimes gets in the way of things like reading the number on the bathroom scales. I usually enter by planting my buttocks on the 14-way Sports Seats, and when thus planted, I follow through by swinging my legs over the door sill. It’s become a bit of an art form now, and I’m glad it’s all come together nicely.
There is another drawback to having the car so close to the ground, though. As much as the hunkered stance makes the 911 run like it is on rails, you feel every expansion joint, every porthole and every bump on the road. Thankfully, it’s neither overly jarring nor too harsh, and the suspension does a really good job of helping the car settle down. But it’s not, and never was ever going to be, a ride of the same pillowy comfort as what my Cayenne with Adaptive Air Suspension can offer. Reviewers have been known to use euphemisms like “communicative” and “transmits how the road feels” when describing the suspension. I’ll just call it firm.
The driver’s seat is, by far and away, the best seat in the house. Much has been said of how Porsche’s interpretation and execution of its outer two digital screens on the instrument cluster display (flanking the analogue tachometer in the centre) essentially renders the fuel gauge on the extreme lateral right, and the time and temperature display on the extreme lateral left, useless when the driver’s view is blocked by the steering wheel.
The good news is that, at least for my GTS, I could assign a different, simplified display to the two digital screens – not unlike that on a GT3 car, but to be honest, I’ve not felt the need to do that on the road. Not when my eyes are glued to the road ahead, with only the occasional glance at the speedometer reading (it’s digital, below the analogue tachometer), for fear of losing my driver’s licence. Otherwise, the display on the instrument cluster is, as it is on the PCM, crisp and clear and there’s no perceptible lag whatsoever.
The interior build quality is excellent. Every touchpoint feels expensive, well built and solid. For something that has reduced sound-deadening (on purpose), I’m surprised that there are hardly any creaks or groans or rattles. I’m pretty sure those will creep up with age, but for now, the only thing I need to get used to is the sound of gravel hitting the underside of the wheel arches – it sounds way, way louder than any other car I’ve ever driven!
I removed the standard Race-Tex that the GTS comes with, and specified a full leather interior, with extended leather packages for the door frames, dashboard and other bits and bobs. I read reviews about how the Race-Tex gets matted from sweat, and I guess I simply have more experience maintaining leather interiors.
Acceleration is, expectedly, effortless. I feather the gas pedal and I fear the loss of my licence. Well, okay, that might be a little exaggerated. Nevertheless, the response of this twin-blown 3.0-litre flat six packing nearly 480hp and twisting a not inconsiderable 570Nm of torque is not to be scoffed at! There’s hardly any turbo lag, and I honestly think the boffins over at Stuttgart have really gotten the science of turbocharging down pat, and this car really, really goes.
There is a section on the M5 out towards Campbelltown that has a 110km/h zone, and I would get behind the wheel and gladly pay the damn tolls just so I can get up to speed behind the wheel of my GTS. There’s also a section of the M8 near Gardeners Road that has a nice tunnel… and goddammit, with the Sports Exhaust flaps opened, the reverberation is one aural treat for the ears. I will lament the day when EVs get the better of us and we all end up ambling about town in our Teslas and BYDs.
Speed is nothing without control, and to that end, massive 408mm front and 380mm rear brakes are apt to scrub off unwanted momentum faster than the Reserve Bank is upping interest rates. I left the brake callipers in their original red colour, as I felt they give a nice visual contrast to the satin black RS Spyder rims (20-inch up front, 21-inch at the back). I also swapped out the original satin black badges for red items purchased off eBay, because why the hell not, when the correct badging apparently adds at least an extra 10hp.
But, no car is perfect, and I am sure the 911 GTS, for its incredible range of talents, is no different. I’m still very much in my honeymoon phase at the moment, so I don’t quite have anything negative to report. But give it some time, and a few thousand kilometres, and I’m sure I’ll be back to update my write-up to present a more balanced view then.
Owner: Happy Owner
MORE: Everything Porsche
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