Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS: there may well be better ones

The price of the Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS is high and the boot is small. It doesn’t use much if you drive gently, but if you give it some welly it uses quite a lot. Past a certain age you feel it in your back when you have to lower yourself into a seat that sits almost flush with the floor. Maintenance isn’t cheap either. Nor is insurance. The dealerships are very friendly, but the parts are expensive and, although they look after you very well, they give your credit card a proper battering.

And the worst of all is that if you fall in love with your Porsche (which could even cause problems with your partner), you don’t want to park it just anywhere, because there are people who still park by ear and because it draws attention and people stare at it a lot. I can’t think of any further drawbacks to a nine-eleven. Everything else is thousands of arguments for placing the 911 Carrera 4 GTS among the best cars in the world.

The 992 family is enriched by the more powerful GTS models

The Porsche engine, a twin-turbo flat-six with a three-litre capacity that features two new turbochargers, delivers 480 CV of power and a maximum torque of 570 Nm, and is fully operative from 2,000 to 5,000 rpm. In short, there is power at your disposal at all times; just brushing the accelerator pedal sends our GTS off like a missile.

Paired with this imposing engine is the eight-speed PDK dual-clutch automatic gearbox, with sequential control and paddles on the steering wheel. In my opinion, and setting aside the world of competition, it is the perfect solution, probably the best, although I won’t deny that the manual gearbox has its charm.

The PDK gearbox is definitive, the best on the market for sportiness, speed of shifts, gear spacing, ease of use and, above all, its ability to extract every last drop of performance from the almost inexhaustible flat-six engine of the Porsche.

All GTS models also come with the Sport Chrono package, controlled from the selector on the steering wheel, which lets you select the different driving modes, a simple rotary dial with a competition flavour that lets you choose between Normal, Sport, Sport Plus and Individual… The last of these is a bit like building a made-to-measure “set-up” for each driver, and it requires some time to choose among its various variables.

Without going to that extreme, we settle on Sport Plus mode, with which the Porsche’s control unit seems to read our minds and always simply gives us what we want. The engine becomes more aggressive and responds more forcefully, the gearbox reacts more immediately to deliver the best performance, and even when downshifting it performs a dual-clutch blip with a rev increase to soften the manoeuvre and add a musicality that accompanies you the whole time.

There is another complementary driving mode in the same system, “Sport Response”, a sporting response, something like a Launch Control in which, for 20 seconds, the engine and gearbox deliver their maximum performance to keep the best possible acceleration going. It reminds me of the “push to pass” systems on some competition cars; for example, they were used in Formula E, in which Porsche is also involved.

Behind the wheel of the Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS

But without doubt, the best thing about this GTS is how it drives, the sensations it transmits through the wheel and how far away the limit is when cornering, which, quite simply, is thrilling. When you activate the aforementioned Sport Plus driving programme, you can feel the dampers change their stiffness range and, without being extreme or uncomfortable, they hold the car even more firmly and provide a gain in poise that gives it an almost racing-car feel.

In this gain in poise and security, a most pleasant sensation behind the wheel, the sports chassis that the engineers of Porsche have defined for this version plays a large part, and which, among other things, lowers the bodywork by ten millimetres. Furthermore, the suspension as a whole derives from, or perhaps it is more accurate to say evolves from, the one designed for the 911 Turbo, which, given its performance range, is closer to that car than to the conventional Carrera… if there is any conventional 911 at all, let’s be honest, since, as we said at the beginning, this is a case of “gilding the lily”.

The other key to this beautifully tuned set-up is the adaptive dampers of the Porsche’s PASM system, or Porsche Active Suspension Management. This suspension, evolved from the 911 Turbo, has an electronic control unit that modifies the settings of the dampers according to various parameters, from the type of road being driven on to the style of driving being undertaken.

That is why some less skilled drivers feel especially at ease with this car… because what they do wrong, the GTS corrects, and the dynamics are simply exceptional. Something that has always surprised me is that more Carrera 4 models with all-wheel drive are sold than rear-wheel-drive 911 Carreras, and in this case too with the GTS models. Logically, if you are looking for extreme performance and sportiness, you would choose the rear-wheel-drive model, which in theory is lighter, more dynamic, more genuine and more performance-oriented. But the truth is that this is the only car, in my opinion, in which having all-wheel drive does not hinder the driving and adds a great deal in traction capability. Perhaps that is the reason.

Even more sporty with the optional packs

The dynamics can be improved further if we include the Lightweight Design pack, which is not cheap, but which is available for the GTS models and reduces weight by up to 25 kilos, which is a lot of kilos. This weight-loss regime on an already light car is achieved, for example, by replacing the seats with full bucket seats in carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer, in other words, competition seats with padding.

Weight is also saved on the glass, with lighter side windows and rear window. A lighter battery is also fitted… with less performance and endurance, and the rear seats are dispensed with, which, to be honest, given what they are good for, are not much missed. That said, as with the ceramic brake kit, if the goal is to do more circuit than road, if you are going to be driving flat out most of the time and cruising little, then it is more than advisable, it is a must, but for the rest of users it is nonsense.

The performance range is up to expectations, and this 911 Carrera 4 GTS Coupé requires 3.3 seconds to go from 0 to 100 km/h. Fortunately the brakes are also sized in keeping with the GTS performance, with a high-performance system taken directly from the 911 Turbo in this case.

We performed the acceleration manoeuvre up to three times almost in succession, and far from the system fading, on one of those occasions we almost bettered it. Every now and then one has a good day… That said, we are talking about using the launch system, and always with our test unit, with the twin-turbocharged flat-six engine and the PDK dual-clutch gearbox. The procedure is simple: standing still, on impeccable asphalt, in automatic gearbox position, with the brake pedal pressed down and the accelerator pedal also pressed, with the Sport Response button activated, you release the brake at a given moment and hold on tight to the steering wheel.

The sensation is savage. The sound drowns out everything, and the Porsche launches itself in such a way that you feel the rear suspension sink slightly as the gears drop and your neck takes a beating. We clearly went under eight seconds to 160 km/h and under twelve seconds to 200… There are figures that intoxicate more than they inform: the power-to-weight ratio of 3.4 kilos per horsepower, or the specific output, which is 151 CV per litre, the total weight of 1,515 kilos, or the maximum rev limit and fuel cut-off, somewhere around 7,500 rpm.

Undoubtedly, the fact that any GTS exceeds 300 km/h is exciting, and of course the boot capacity, which is 125 litres at the front and 260 at the rear… ah! no, nobody is interested in that.

Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS – Photo gallery

Technical specifications of this car

CoupePorsche 91119 versions · from 157,835 €