It’s been more than two decades since a summer job landed my narrow butt in the single-piece seat of a 1994 Porsche Speedster. It was red. It made a cackling wail. It smelled like leather and oil and gasoline. It felt special and rare and like something that would last. All of those memories flooded back when the latest Porsche Speedster arrived for an instrumented test.
1993 Porsche 911 Speedster Road Test
The new Speedster is the last of the “old-generation” Porsche 911, the one that folks like us refer to as the 991 because it’s easier and cooler to say that at cars and coffee meets than “the 911 from 2012 to 2019.” A quick primer on the 991, in case you missed our nonstop coverage: It features a wheelbase that hovers around 96.5 inches, is easily livable and refined, and it’s the generation that brought turbocharging to the common 911. The Speedster version is a sort of send-off, a two-seat parting shot packed with a very special engine that’ll cost about $275,000. Only 1948 will be built; it says so right on the instrument panel. In case you’re rusty on Porsche history, that number is significant because the brand built its first car in 1948. Feel free to toss that one around at cars and coffee, too.
The Porsche 911 Speedster Is a Topless GT3
The new Speedster is nearly a foot longer and eight inches wider than the old 964 version from the ’90s, and yet both cars have a lot in common. Speedsters have always featured a cut-down windshield that requires a unique top, and the new one is 2.0 inches shorter than the standard 911 convertible’s. The seats in the new car are single-piece pinchers like the ones that left a bruise on my thigh in 1996. Borrowed from the 918 and other Stuttgart exotica, the carbon-fiber shells move fore and aft, but the backrest is fixed and very upright. It’s a stern “sit up straight” message from Germany. Pay attention, dummkopf, some serious things are about to happen.
Moving Music
There’s really no way that you could not take this 911’s 4.0-liter flat-six seriously as it revs to its 9000-rpm redline. A slightly revised version of the engine in the GT3 model, the Speedster’s features individual throttle bodies, higher-pressure direct injectors, and a new, lighter exhaust. It makes 502 horsepower at 8400 rpm and 346lb-ft of torque at 6250 rpm.
With no top or glass to mute it, Zuffenhausen’s version of Now That’s What I Call Music pours right in. The instrument is a naturally aspirated flat-six. The sounds are table saw, the head-buffeting roar of a jet engine, and just a hint AC/DC’s Brian Johnson. It’s loud, cutting, and fast. Fun fact: With the top raised, according to our sound measurements, the Speedster is slightly quieter than the 991 coupe when you zing the engine to the redline. But who is driving this car with the top up?
In a salute to hard-core sports-car lovers, the Speedster comes only with a manual transmission. The six-speed ‘box from the GT3 is here, and while the shifts are a bit more plastic toy gun than well-oiled rifle cliché, the gearbox will accept even brutally quick shifts. There’s also a button labeled Auto Blip to turn on the automatic rev matching should you start feeling too lazy to hit the accelerator while downshifting.
Launching the Speedster for maximum acceleration is a bit tricky. The rear-weight bias and large, sticky Michelins provide serious traction, but the engine won’t rev past 5000 rpm when the car is stationary. If you release the clutch pedal at 5000 rpm, the traction is great enough to bog the engine. To get the best time, what you want is just a hint of wheelspin to get the engine into its power zone. Not many owners will do what’s required to extract our 3.7-second time to 60 mph, but this is what’s required: With the engine at 5000 rpm, slowly release the clutch pedal while keeping the throttle wide open. If you get it right, the clutch will slip slightly and the engine will rev past the 5000-rpm barrier, allowing the engine to overpower the grip of the tires. As the tach zings past 6000 or so, the clutch hooks up, and you’re gone.
Breaking the rear tires loose sends them skipping, causing a shudder to run through the spine of the car. Ignore it. Aside from wafts of eau de clutch, the technique resulted in no negative side effects. The shifter slotted into each gear without any protest, and the clutch pedal never gave any signs of distress. Without a brutal launch, as in our rolling-start, 5-to-60-mph test, the Speedster put up a 4.4-second time. Still quick, but the newer turbocharged Carreras and 911s fitted with PDK automatic transmissions are all quicker.
Keeping it Simple
Obsessing over the Speedster’s acceleration numbers misses the point. This car is as much about speed as it is about driver interaction. Porsche puts the steering from the GT3 in the Speedster. It also has the GT3’s Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 summer tires and chassis setup—raised slightly and with reprogrammed dampers—which are good for 1.07 g of grip on the skidpad. Sorry. There we go again with the numbers.
The Speedster’s top unlatches from the windshield and unlocks the buttresses electrically, but the rest of the operation requires human assistance. After you do it once, it can be done with minimal fuss. Speedsters don’t have rear seats, and that area features a massive clamshell-like carbon-fiber tonneau cover that swings out and hides the top. The tonneau cover and the lower windshield give the Speedster a low and long look—sort of like a Boxster Spyder shot in 35-mm format. The GT3-spec wheels and tires look especially large stuck into such a low canvas.
A Speedster is every bit as good as you’d hope a convertible GT3 would be. In addition to being able to take in the mouthwatering aromas of meat cooking in food trucks parked around Los Angeles, you can hear the yowls of the little bastard locked up behind the rear wheels more clearly. You’re drawn tighter to the machinery in the Speedster, pulled tighter into the experience of moving through space, exposed to the world, the sky above, the oil-burning Nissan Altima in the lane next to you. There’s less that gets in the way of your senses. There’s less that gets in the way of the experience. Less is more.
Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com
