The centerpiece of the 911 Carrera GTS is its brilliant motor. When Porsche announced that the GTS was going hybrid, people freaked the eff out. Hell, even I was ever-so-slightly wary of it, but after spending a week with the powerplant stuffed over the GTS’ rear wheels, I’ve gotta say, it’s freaking brilliant. What we’re working with is a brand-new single-turbo 3.6-liter flat-six, which is then teamed up to a high-voltage electrical system, an electric motor and Porsche’s amazing PDK dual-clutch transmission. There’s no manual available, which will also hurt purists’ feelings, but the electric motor is coupled directly to the crankshaft and puts out a stout 54 horsepower and 110 pound-feet of torque all by itself. The T-Hybrid system draws power from a 1.9-kWh battery pack mounted under the hood, where the old 12-volt battery used to be (that’s now a thinner unit under the rear parcel shelf).
Andy Kalmowitz / Jalopnik
All in all, the Carrera GTS puts out a very strong 532 hp and 449 lb-ft of torque, improvements of 59 hp and 29 lb-ft of torque over the non-hybrid 992.1 GTS. That means this beast, despite being a rear-wheel-drive car, can get from 0 to 60 mph in just 2.5 seconds, according to Car and Driver. If you keep your foot in it, it’ll pass the quarter-mile in 10.6 seconds at 131 mph, all while you happily bounce off the 7,500-rpm redline (which you can now rotate to 12 o’clock thanks to the new digital gauge cluster). I don’t know how Porsche does this, and we shouldn’t ask questions of the devil. The hybrid system is deliriously complicated to anyone who isn’t an engineer (or deeply German), so I won’t even try to understand how it works. All that’s important to know is that what it’s doing was nearly imperceptible to me behind the wheel. It’s the most naturally aspirated–feeling turbocharged car I’ve ever driven. Really, the only way you’d know what’s going on is from the very pronounced turbo noises and the fact that the engine cuts out when you drop below 5 mph — and if that’s not your thing, just turn off stop-start. Then, there’s really no way to know.
Andy Kalmowitz / Jalopnik
Being a Porsche means the engine is only half of what makes the 911 such a wonderful experience behind the wheel. The other half is the way it drives, the way I felt a deep, personal connection with the car and the road, cliché as it might sound. There’s just something about the way this car skates through corners. To say it’s on rails is disingenuous. Sure, there’s plenty of mechanical grip from the well-tuned chassis and meaty Goodyear Eagle F1 Super Sport summer tires out back, but this is a rear-wheel-drive car with an engine on the rear axle and not much weight up front, so it’s without a doubt tail happy.
That being said, it never felt like I was out of control or on the brink of something catastrophic. On a quick, twisty road, entering a flow state was delightfully easy. Time melts away behind the wheel of the 911 GTS. Minutes turned into hours on my favorite bits of road near Bear Mountain in New York. At one point, my partner called to ask where I was, and I told her I was too locked-in to come home. She understood.
