Porsche 911 Cabriolet review

The newly refreshed Porsche 911, now known as the 992.2 generation, with a folding fabric roof that retracts in 12 seconds. It is, to be honest, a pretty known quantity in the car world. Porsche builds eleventy thousand versions of each 911 – roofless ones, lighter ones, faster ones… the Carrera Cabrio is a pretty heartland, predictable stalwart of the range. 

So, what versions of the Cabriolet can I have?

Great question, because there will be plenty of different versions of the 992.2 Carrera Cabriolet. At launch in 2024 though you can only have the entry level Carrera or the hybridised GTS. Yep, the 911 has gone hybrid in drop-top form too. More on that later.

Give me some stats on the standard Carrera.

As you’d expect, it copies the coupe’s specs to the letter. That means you get a 3.0-litre twin-turbo flat-six that sends 389bhp and 332lb ft of torque to the rear wheels. While the Carrera coupe records an unladen (DIN) weight of 1,520kg, the Cabrio’s extra moving parts mean that it’s 80kg heaver, so 0-62mph drops to 4.3 seconds. Spec the Sport Chrono package and you’ll drop that to 4.1 seconds, but the coupe claims 4.1 as standard and 3.9 with the same optional extra. 

There’s no manual gearbox option at launch, so it’s eight-speed PDK paddleshifter only. As per usual, a whole array of items and gadgets to make the car faster, more complicated and more expensive are waiting on the options list. Things like four-wheel steering, carbon-ceramic brakes, and the stopwatch-tastic Sport Chrono package, with launch control and a serious Sport Plus drive mode.

That’s the way of the Porsche world these days – even the least focused, most boulevard 911 has the power of a full-blooded supercar from a generation ago, will quite literally dry your eyeballs with its straight-line pace, and can be optioned up with more computing power than the Apollo space program, so it’ll embarrass supposedly more focused cars with its lap times. Should you ever take it to a racetrack. We suspect you won’t.

A 911 Cab’s natural habitat is slower paced. Maybe it’s in town. A motorway schlep. The 911 prides itself on everyday Swiss Army knife user-friendliness and the Cabrio’s ready for all of that, while giving you a suntan. Course, because it’s a 911 drop-top it’s not the most elegant of cabrios. It’s not just physically weighty at the rear – there’s a lot of visual mass, and with the 992’s full-width rear lightsaber and fillets of plastic around the diffuser… it’s a bit of a lumpy looker with the top down. Angry robot frog from the front, Kim Kardashian meets RoboCop from behind.

Still, at least the facelift has tidied things up slightly – the rear grille up on top of the engine is slightly smaller and neater, and the front end has been tidied with all of the lighting functions now in the round LED units.

And of course, you can change all of that styling work by ticking the box for the SportDesign package that adds a new front apron, side skirts and an even heftier rear bumper. We’d avoid. Strangely, the 911 Cab is now arguably prettier with the roof motored swiftly into place. The polymer fabric sandwiches four magnesium panels, so it’s actually a sort of lightweight folding hard-top without the panel gaps. Good for security, refinement, and for avoiding the ribbed ‘hungry horse’ look of a saggy soft-top. That classic 911 teardrop shape stays just about intact.

What if I want even more power?

Ah yes, we promised to come back to the GTS. You’ve probably heard about Porsche’s new T-Hybrid system by now, but if you haven’t here’s a very quick overview. 

From launch of the 992.2 you can have a Carrera GTS Cabriolet or a Carrera 4 GTS Cabriolet (yep, that means all-wheel drive on the latter). They both use a new 3.6-litre turbocharged flat-six engine, and that’s paired with two electric motors. This isn’t the plug-in hybrid powertrain with electric motors on the front axle that you’re expecting though, because one of the motors makes 54bhp and is integrated into the PDK gearbox, while the other is a teeny tiny 14bhp motor that sits inside the single turbocharger and spins it up to rapid RPMs to essentially eliminate turbo lag.

There’s no plugging in either – Porsche has used a small 27kg, 1.9kWh (gross) battery that rapidly dishes out most of its output and then gets its charge from regenerative braking and exhaust gas flow in the turbocharger.

Hang on, so just how quick is the GTS?

Well, the result of all that geekery is 534bhp and 450lb ft of torque, so it’s bonkers fast. You can click through to the Driving tab of this review for more detail, but we will give you this one stat – 0-62mph takes 3.1 seconds no matter how many wheels are driven. Yikes.

How much will it cost me?

As you might expect, prices have increased from 992 to 992.2. The entry-level Carrera Cabriolet will set you back £109,800 in the UK before options, while the GTS is a hefty £142,600 and the 4 GTS is £149,100. Expect Porsche to fill that space in between with a Carrera 4, Carrera S and Carrera T before long. 

No, it’s not the 911 hardcore Nürburgring addicts and classic Porschephiles lust after, but there’s no getting away from the fact that the 992.2’s Cabriolet offering is spectacularly well-engineered. The aerodynamics, the refinement, the pace and poise and everyday fuss-free aplomb it offers… it’s a sublime all-rounder. 

Perhaps it doesn’t tug at the ol’ emotional heartstrings as hard as rivals like the Jaguar F-Type and Audi R8 Spyder, but both of those cars are dead and so are many of the 911’s other drop-top rivals. Plus, we haven’t been bowled over by the new Mercedes SL. And yes, Porsche may have gone hybrid with the GTS, but it’s done so in a delightfully geeky way that adds barely any weight and maximises performance. 

The 911 Cabriolet is not the most endearing of Porsche 911s, perhaps, but it’s an undisputably brilliant luxury sports car. Honestly now, were you expecting anything else?