Road Test: Porsche 911 S 2dr

This last hurrah for the 996 Turbo, this power-kitted, 450bhp, ceramic-carbon braked Turbo S, is a bit like Alzheimer's disease. You begin a journey perfectly normally, prepared for the usual commute, and suddenly you're... er... there, sporting nothing more than a wan grin and a dazed look. Unable, in other words, to remember what the bloody hell just happened. Put your mind at rest, because I can tell you that your faculties are still lighting up the requisite neurons; it's just that this car makes miniature time warps an A-road reality. Welcome to the S Express.

I have to just explain something here, in case you think we're all at nine-nine-sixes and sevens, and have lost the model-year plot for good. Seven-hundred notes under a hundred grand is lot to pay for anything, let alone something with last year's headlights, but the Porsche 911 Turbo S is still on sale as the 996 model. So while you can now buy the 997 Carrera and S, you can still buy 996s in Turbo, Turbo S, GT2 and Turbo Cabrio guises. Confused? You will be.

So it's just a steroidal run-out model to be blunt, but what a way to go. Basically, the S swells the standard Turbo's blowers, increases the efficiency of the standard car's twin intercoolers to maintain a lower intake temperature, and spikes the engine management's drink with amphetamine. Then it adds stunning PCCBs (Porsche Ceramic Composite Brakes - you can tell 'em by those lairy yellow calipers and their slightly 'textured' look) and stands back looking pleased with itself. Shake it all about until it settles into place and you get a healthy punt up the power chart of 30bhp to 450bhp, and torque rises to an infinitely more respectable 457lb ft.

Speed is the end product. First you get a shooshy, obviously turbo-led ramp up to about 5,000rpm, at which point the 911 opens its lungs and lunges in a great heave right up until it nestles into soft limit at 6,750rpm. It always feels as if there's a few more mph in the tank, even at legal grey-area speeds. It's a terrific trick, and one that you don't get bored of quickly. But once you've got over the shock of the sheer push, you might start to notice some niggles. For a start, this Porsche camber chases like a fast-forward squirrel hunts for nuts. The extra weight of the four-wheel drive helps to keep it in some sort of order compared to, say, the GT3 RS with no fuel in the tank, but there is no ridge or hollow into which the front - or indeed the rear - wheels will not snuffle and hunt.

It rides fairly well, so there must be some sort of conscious effort going into this interest in road texture - it feels as if it's on 'German' spec springing and damping, where the cars are wound down for smooth roads at much higher speeds. Strange then that it never feels loose. It may wander about like a dizzy toddler, but it feels as planted as it gets without negative lift. All four wheels dig and grip, pulling and pushing to provide the most forward thrust they possibly can in any given situation, and you can feel them doing it. It grips like someone turned up the gravity.

Throw it into any corner with PSM stability management turned off and you'll soon be greeted by marginal understeer. Stamp on the right-hand pedal post-throw and you'll discover the meaning of rear-bias. The 911 Turbo S will go sideways like any other Porker, despite the four-wheel drive, and when it does, the best thing to do is modulate the throttle very slightly and keep going. The diffs and electronics will sort things out for you if they are given enough notice; just don't stamp and then lift in quick succession or it could get really (£100k-style) embarrassing. By the way, those ceramic brakes, which are about half the weight of standard metal discs and reduce unsprung weight, stop with such resolution that you imagine at some point a stretch of badly laid tarmac may well just slough straight off the hardcore and you'll end up skidding along, ruching it up like an unsecured hall runner carpet.

It also doesn't sound like much. Because this flat-six has a pair of turbos between it and the atmosphere, it robs itself of aural excitement to get the boost in-cylinder. It seems to have an appreciable effect on throttle response too, although I'm pretty sure the severity of the problem is exacerbated psychologically, because there isn't the immediate rise in revs and metallic growl from the 3.6-litre engine to encourage you up the rev range. It's boomy at a cruise too, but even though the lack of a sexy sound isn't preferable - that's OK - it suggests that any disparity of mouth and trousers is in the right direction.

Both the outside and interior bear out the softly clinical feel. Inside, sports seats clamp your bottom into the centre of the car - part of the reason why you feel everything so intimately - and there is a 'carbon pack' to decorate the dash furniture. Everything is clear and precise, but not exactly quirky, and not exactly a hundred grand's worth of exotica. It's the little things: the xenon lights, although powerful, cut sharply off 15 metres in front of the car. Your night-time speed is effectively curtailed by the fact that you can't see.

Similarly, the dashboard is a slab with buttons on. The outside looks strangely undaunting for something so powerful - we've seen it too much before in its various guises. Like a black tie outfit, it still looks classy no matter where it is, but it's not exactly stand-out-from-the-crowd stuff now, is it? The rear electric spoiler is a give-away, and there's a few extra places for air to ingress and egress, as well as brightwork on the kickplates and a calligraphic 'S' legend on the rear engine cover, but it's pretty stock Porsche outlines all round. Is that an advantage or a flaw? Over to your personal tasteometer...

The Turbo S is the car that in some ways defines Porsche, as well as a straight Carrera 2. It's shockingly fast, both through a corner and on a straight piece of road, and remarkably easy to access in terms of performance. It's also incredibly stealth. Plus, it satisfies a very specific need for exactly that sort of car. I can't imagine the perfect garage not to include some variant of the 911 Turbo. And if you've got to have one, then the S is the car to have.