The Bilster Berg Drive Resort
is a private club track in central Germany that squiggles over hill and
dale at the top of a small mountain where there once was a British Army
ammo dump. It’s not a track-map sticker you really want for your car,
as the circuit is shaped almost exactly like the large intestine. And
people in our group kept calling it “Blister Berg,” the mountain of
blisters. The Germans just stared as they ladled out the lunch of
roasted pig knuckles.
The famous Porsche wheelman Walter Rörhl
consulted on the design, which is a tossed salad of hidden apexes just
past blind crests leading to off-camber death-drops. It’s a great, if
scary, place to drive the new Porsche 911 Turbo because it proves how
shockingly well this 3550-pound touring coupe can do something it is not
expected to do much of: track work.
Porsche’s intention is to give you it all. Blistering speed, of course,
but, just as important, daily usability, the comfort of a sheik’s
casbah, and the best fuel efficiency possible in a 911 offering up to
560 horsepower. In cracking its lid and packing in even more horses, the
car’s keister swells by yet another 1.1 inches from its predecessor.
The 911 Turbo has always had hips you want to grab with both hands and
squeeze, but now, from the back, the new Turbo looks like a Peter Paul
Rubens scene in CinemaScope.
Porsche is compelled to turn up the wick to fend off interlopers in the
$150,000-to-$200,000 sandbox where the Turbo now plays. There are AMGs,
Aston Martins, and Audi R8s rattling around in this space, plus the forthcoming McLaren P13.
Hence, both the base Turbo and the Turbo S are for the first time being
launched simultaneously, for $149,250 and $182,050, respectively. The
price difference basically pays for all the Turbo’s performance options
including carbon-ceramic brakes, plus 40 horsepower, center-lock forged
wheels, slightly different air intakes up front, and the all-important
“S” badge
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