996tt First impressions

Picked up my new car yesterday from Carlisle and had a good opportunity to get acquainted with her on the 390miles back to Plymouth. I set myself a bit of a top gear challenge and managed to successfully do the trip on one tank of Petrol (averaging just over 30mpg). I'm amazed really because I made good progress, gave it a few blats to the red line in various gears to ensure everything was working correctly and my cruising speed only dropped in the last 50miles as I started to really worry about not making it. The car surprised me a bit. I've owned a fair selection of sports cars (TVR Cerbera 4.2, Z4MC, various M3's and a couple of very serious 944 turbos one of which I still own) so I had a pre conceived idea about what the car might be like. From the reviews I imagined it would be a bit like a Mk5 Golf R32 with two turbos bolted on. It was a car I loved very much in my ownership and capable of immense cross country pace but you always had the feeling you were along for the ride and the car was doing all the work. The 996tt feels nothing like that? It's a different animal to the GT3 entirely but through the comfy seats and lighter steering you can still feel its the same chassis. I've only used a tiny percentage of the cars abilities so far but the way it reacts to bumps, dives into corners under braking and changes direction.. all the parts which make up the drivers perception of a cars character can only be likened to my experiences in a 996 GT3 RS as a passenger at Silverstone. The sound also. Having never heard a 996tt on boost or been out in one before I expected the sort of silent but deadly experience of the 997 turbo. Now I'm not SURE here whether my car has a completely standard exhaust but it idles with a deep bass note and emits 'wup wooping' sounds like muffled barks as you manoeuvre around at low speeds its far more vocal than a 997. You can really hear the roar of the flat 6 and the furious, angry rushing of air as the revs wind up. Then of course last but not least there's the power. The first time I experienced it was overtaking in third from about 4000rpm. After you depress the throttle, that moment of lag as the speed builds (which still felt about as quick as a 1.8t golf gti on full song) was just enough time for me to think 'is that it' before the turbos kicked in and my head hit the headrest. Embarrassingly it spat once off the limiter as I changed gear but the car who had just pulled in to let me pass was so shocked by the ferocity with which I blew past, that they flashed their lights at me in disgust! I know it was ice cold and dry last night PERFECT conditions but it's shockingly hard to believe that this car has 'only' 420bhp. It certainly doesn't waste them. If it wasn't for the boost gauge telling me otherwise I'd have said the car was chipped for sure. A factory standard car, providing this kind of performance for 10 years and yet still managing to look, smell and feel like it left the factory this morning is one AWESOME piece of engineering!

Glad youre liking it mate [ ] I'm on my second one now and i'd agree wholeheartedly with all the above, but to add one other point m'lud. Cornering...staggering....i'm still getting away with cornering speeds that a lesser vehicle would have spat me into the bushes well before now [ ] it is truly an amazing piece of kit enjoy!

The way you describe the power delivery, I am wondering if it has been chipped. What boost are you getting?

I wasn't really watching it on boost, with it being my first drive I kept my concentration on the road but I didn't ever see it hit 1.0 bar I think it was peaking at 0.8? It may have an exhaust and it definitely has a panel filter but that shouldn't make any difference unless the standard items are particularly restrictive? Perhaps you're just numb to it now, I know how you can become dangerously familiar with even the most intense acceleration, I myself have suffered from this and rally drivers say even 2.2secs to 60 doesn't feel quick after a while but give it a few months without boost and a cold night. It was enough to take me by surprise and I'm hard to please. The 996tt is deadly quick by any measure. I hope my car is standard because then a chip will make it REALLY quick!

Nice car collection mate. I am jealous! would love a passenger ride thats for sure.

If it is boosting to 0.8 it has likely been mapped. Normal boost for a standard map is 0.6-0.7. You do get used to it. Take care when overtaking until you are. Pull out and then plant the throttle, or you end up very close to the car in front.

I will watch the boost gauge more keenly and confirm tomorrow. Andrew if your near Plymouth you're welcome to a passenger ride any time. I welcome any excuse to go for a drive and share the turbo experience so happy to oblige.

Forgive me for interloping into the 996 zone but I would be very interested in hearing how you might describe the comparison between your 996tt and the 3.2 944T, in terms of punch.Or indeed the comparison with your current red 944T.

Haha. You are most welcome here it seems many old school 944 turbos owners are looking for 996s at the moment. Their current price is encouraging new interest amongst those in the know. I was hoping no one would ask me that question. It's a hard thing to compare. Firstly I think there is a level of fast at some point beyond which things are just 'quick' and its very hard to determine whether one car is faster than another. You feel the G-force, know you're in something serious and that's as much as your brain needs to know. The red 944t and the 996tt are like chalk and cheese. I'm fairly certain if I was following myself in the 996 with the 944 I could keep up on the public road no matter how fast I drove (in the dry), definitely for overtaking in short bursts you could sit up behind the 996 on full throttle but the 996 has such a massive power band that if you were to go flat out through the full length of a couple of gears (e.g. accelerating up a slip road and out onto the motorway) it would start to pull away. You would feel like you earned that pace a thousand times more in the seat of the 944. You would be working the car, feeling the grip, the weight of the car, and concentrating every ounce on getting the perfect gear change to keep the car on boost and not interrupt the grip where in the 996tt it would feel pretty effortless to drive similarly close to the limits of the cars ability. As a result you would never keep up in the wet. The car 'may' be physically capable with a perfect driver but no man is going to push a car consistently as close to the limit in a 944 as you would in the solid feeling 4wheel drive 996. The 3.2ltr 944 turbo was a lot closer in character to the 996 turbo, its delivery although brutal if you sit at 4000rpm and mash the pedal was so smooth through the rev range that its extremely easy to exploit the power and make phenomenal progress in both cars. The natural balance and stability of the car may even make it slightly faster if it was set up correctly than the 996 round a track. I think it really did have potential to beat one. We are however coming to the famous Clarkson 'but' of this review and that is that value removed from the equation I am now certain, absolutely 100% sure I would take the 996 over the 944. I'm sorry, and with everything else I've owned, even if it was better in some respects, no other car has topped my love for the 944 but the 996 has won over my top spot. Both cars car be used both as a daily driver, both are a fantastic place to be on a long journey, both make me want to get up early just to go for a drive and both are extremely capable track cars but I can sum up the difference in three very simply elements. Power, the 996 turbo is as fast as anything I've ever driven or been in, even in its standard form running a modest/reliable 0.6-0.7 bar boost. With merely a chip it has the potential to be easily the quickest car I've ever known. Quality, it encourages an air of confidence like the standard 944, which means you know you can enjoy it without a feeling of guilt that every time you go for a good drive you're risking breaking something. Character, and in the end its the imperfections that win it for me. That light front end skipping wide as you hit a bump on the exit of a corner, the feeling on occasion that you are driving a triangle with a back end twice as wide as the front and just the way the car reacts and feels at your finger tips gives the 911 a character that defines the driving experience. In the 996 it manages to maintain that but without compromising any of the cars abilities. Overall I feel like I've done a poor job of justifying just how good the 996 is as a car to own but basically I absolutely love it![ ]

DITTO, i love mine, now that the shaft has been done the sound,power etc is truly amazing, with a tubi exhaust she cries out push the loud pedal, go on do it [8D][8D][8D]

Ben You make a compelling case...