I traveled to Toronto on the weekend past to visit a friend having no idea that he was a Porsche owner, albeit his recently acquired Porsche. He's pretty laidback about the whole thing so it's not like he would run around talking about his car... I might not be so cool.
After being out for dinner on Saturday he handed me the keys to drive back and, even though I was hesitant, I only say no to something like that once... maybe twice if I'm pretty sure the offer won't disappear. I will admit that this was my first time behind the wheel of a Porsche of any style. This was a 911 Carrera 4S in black.
I could go on about the comfort, dash layout and bells and whistles all day, but that's not what this car is all about. My focus was learning where some of it's limits, and mine, might lay while still getting the car back in one piece... yes, it was all about the fun.
Step One: Shifting.
The transmission is the PDK dual clutch setup which is the smoothest automatic transmission I have ever felt, particularly when I consider that it is transferring up to 385 HP through 7 gears. Yah, I could have just left it in full auto, but I like to shift. I want to know what gear I am in and choose which gear to use given what I might be trying to accomplish at the time... sometimes it might just be a downshift to hear the engine wind down.
There are paddle shifters, I didn't touch those, not my favourite gimmick. The shifter is easy enough, pull to the left and it changes to "manual" mode. Typical, push forward to upshift sequentially and pull back to downshift sequentially. The manual shifting loses some of the smoothness of the full auto but that was partly my fault...I could not get around trying to "pull" back to second, "push" to third, "pull" to fourth etc. I kept losing track of where I was. Sadly I cannot compare against a manual Porsche tranny as I have not driven one.
There are multiple settings for the shifting performance, sport plus is aggressive, maxs out in 6th gear and will drop into 2nd when the driver is equally aggressive... yup, it works. I was shocked when this happened the first time as we were poking along at 110Kph and the tach buried itself deep into the red line... perhaps a little past the ideal power band but there seemed to still be some left to give.
Note to self: Don't try that at home.
Oh, even in manual mode it will downshift, I wasn't expecting that... I thought manual meant manual. Ultimately the car decides, so I think all that really happens is I choose the top gear.
Switching to "not so sporty" allows 7th gear to come into play and will only downshift to 3rd at speed. I would hesitate to say it that it is more sedate as there is still lots of "go" to be had here. Rather than a scream it was a more throaty pitch and a comfortable push into the seat. Sport plus is a little too much for the highway.
Step Two: Blind Spots.
It was dark at this point and the 401 was busy. Right lane changes were a little unnerving as I was not familiar with where my blind spot was, I didn't know for certain that there wasn't a car sitting just off of my rear quarter that I couldn't see. The absolute LAST thing I wanted to do was to change lanes and, well, do some damage. Normally I am very aware of cars on the highway and I know where they all are... this traffic was not behaving predictably as there were lots of faster cars changing multiple lanes from behind.
Not good.
Rather than looking back to see what's coming I looked ahead to see what was already in my line of sight, for certain. Punching the accelerator to jump ahead and zip over where I knew that there was a spot at least big enough to fit into. This worked well, allowed a little more pedal play and let me test the agility of the car a little bit.
Step Three: Cornering.
The aforementioned lane change issue took us on a longer ride than planned as I missed a couple of exits do to my initial timidity in changing lanes.
Introducing the "U" turn.
I didn't do one initially as I didn't know what the turning radius was and I knew that I couldn't (or shouldn't) attempt a power drift to make it... yup, I've seen some of those You Tube videos with the idiots in their fast cars attempting the same thing and laughed at the results. Pulling into a quiet intersection to turn around I realized that I could have easily made it with lots of room to spare... I am used to driving Hondas and they have a tight turning radius... Porsche is tighter yet and roll is next to unheard of.
Given that this beasty has all wheel drive and that everything up to this point had produced no noticeable slip in the rear end I tried a full power turn from a standing start. Basically a 90 degree right turn with the pedal to the mat. Result, a minor bit of slip due likely to some sand and nothing short of pure acceleration exactly where I pointed it. To be honest I probably shouldn't have tried that as I wasn't 100% certain it would behave even though I was prepared for lots of counter steering.
Accelerating out of the turns produced a very comfortable groove and, as cliche as it sounds, the car corners as if it were on rails.
While the purpose of my trip was not to drive a really nice sports car, it certainly was a cool perk. A Porsche is not on my list of immediate purchases but I could certainly get used to one in my driveway.
Maybe a nice sedan...
Jeff.
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