Road Test: Porsche 911 2dr

Follicles straining, hair tugged backwards, eyes squinting from the flow of air surging over the top of the windscreen. Any closer to this Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet's 190mph top speed and I could risk going totally bald.

I'm sampling the bouffant-demolishing potential of the fastest 911 drop-top to date. A bee implodes on the windscreen - it's just met with the forces generated by this car's twin-turbocharged, intercooled, 3.6-litre flat-six engine. A mighty 420bhp is unleashed at 6,000rpm, accompanied by 413lb ft of torque available from 2,700rpm; that's sufficient to despatch 0-62mph in 4.3 seconds.For the record, the only time Porsche has brought us a production 911 Turbo Cabriolet before was 16 years ago; it generated 300bhp, covered 0-62mph in 5.2 seconds and topped out at 161mph.

The current Turbo Cabriolet is 60mm wider than regular 911 soft-tops and it's built tougher too. The sills are twice the usual width, with extra high-strength steel plates linking up to the A- and B-pillars. The additional structural stiffening adds 70kgs to the car's weight.Thankfully no performance penalty can be felt. In fact, after having flicked the switch on the centre console and waited 20 seconds for the triple-layer hood to be folded away, my senses (and hairline) are being exposed to an even greater battering than they'd receive from within the snug confines of a 911 Turbo coupe.

There's no perceptible delay before the turbos set to work. As air is forced over the intercoolers, I find myself holding on and grimacing as the car hammers forwards. There's no trouble transmitting all that power to the road, the four-wheel-drive system sending between five and 40 per cent of the drive to the front wheels through a viscous coupling. I snap the gearbox up through its six ratios, then the brakes with their inner-vented, cross-drilled discs provide a brief rug-rearranging opportunity on the approach to a corner.

The straights shorten and the potholes increase in frequency, threatening to reveal any structural weaknesses resulting from the process of lopping the Turbo's roof off. Even here, most of the sharpness of the coupe can be experienced.

As with the Turbo coupe, this is an easy car to get the best from. It's agile and never intimidating, information being shrieked back through the throttle pedal, steering and brakes as successions of bends are dealt with. Extreme lateral forces leave me straining against my seatbelt, the 225-front and 295-section rear tyres worn on 18-inch hollow-spoke alloys latching on hard to the tarmac. There's rarely the need to call the Porsche Stability Management system into action - at least, on these roads and in these baked-dry conditions.

The PSM system is a standard fit, as are electrically-adjusted leather-trimmed seats, climate control, a BOSE sound system and an aluminium hard-top. Revealing plenty about the intentions of potential 911 Turbo Cabriolet customers, Porsche says just five per cent are likely to fork out the £5,355 required for the optional hard-core, fade-resistant Porsche Ceramic Composite Brakes, while at least 40 per cent are expected to pay £1,961 for the five-speed Tiptronic S automatic with manual-shift mode, choosing to rest their left foot at the expense of an increase in weight and a reduction in performance.

Considering the considerable £96,130 asking price before such extras, those Turbo Cabriolet buyers will be relieved to learn that there is a way to tell their purchase from the C4S Cabriolet that we First Steered last month - a car which handles just as well, feels nearly as quick, looks mostly similar, sounds even more spectacular and costs £26,200 less. The Turbo boasts a tail spoiler which sprouts an even more unsubtle secondary wing as the speeds rise above 75mph, providing confirmation that this is the widest 911 in terms of more than just its measurements.

Peter Grunert