When developing the Cayenne, Porsche’s engineers realised just how beneficial a cutting-edge four-wheel drive system can be when trying to deploy large amounts of power and torque. As a result, the new Turbo features much of the all-wheel drive technology pioneered on the Cayenne.
It has three electronic control systems that interact to maximize the Turbo’s traction, handling and stability, and unlike the previous model they actively react to what the car is doing on the road.
Porsche Traction Management (PTM) controls torque split; Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) adjusts the Bilstein dampers accordingly; Porsche Stability Management (PSM) uses the brakes, throttle and rear diff to control understeer and oversteer. The driver can also select sport mode, which firms up the dampers, pulls back the PSM and ABS thresholds and raises the rev limit.
Capacity remains at 3.6 litres but, thanks largely to the development of a new Borg Warner variable-geometry turbocharger for each bank of three cylinders (a first for a petrol engine), power jumps from 414 to 473bhp at 6000rpm; torque rises from 413 to 457lb ft. More important still, this torque peak is delivered all the way from 1950rpm to 5000rpm, endowing the 911 with a phenomenal amount of flexibility.
Yet more torque is available with the optional (£1015) Sports Chrono pack. This provides overboost torque of 502lb ft under full throttle between 2100 and 4000rpm – for 10sec. Our test car had this.
Standard stoppers are 350mm cast iron ventilated discs front and rear, with six-piston calipers at the front. Specify the PCCB ceramic composite discs (£5349) and the disc sizes rise to 380mm all round while the kerb weight (1585kg) drops by a significant 17kg. We weighed our test car, with PCCB brakes, at 1557kg.