Road Test: Porsche 911 S 2dr

I've never believed in numerology before. But maybe there's something in it after all. Take the Ducati 916. The scarlet Italian motorbike is lumpy and uncooperative in town, with heavy, awkwardly-placed controls and rather unsubtle power delivery. Its handling is quirky and its mechanical layout distinctly individual, but it's a desirable, even beautiful, modern design classic which attracts huge attention - partly due to its price tag. And, in the hands of an experienced, skilled and brave person, it'll outhandle and outperform almost anything on the road.

Now take another vehicle with an uncannily similar string of numbers - the Porsche 911. Bizarrely, though four-wheeled and German, it shares almost all of the above characteristics. Weird, or what? However, one difference is that the bike's evolutionary growth is towards faster, loonier, more bonkers variants - the latest version is a race-ready 996cc version that eats speed limits for breakfast and will spit any non-World Championship standard rider over an eight-foot hedge with very little provocation.

The 911, on the other hand, is winding down towards replacement in a year or so's time, and marking time by reshuffling the familiar model pack. Hence this latest version of the 911, the Carrera S. It's not, sad to say, a restatement of the lightweight, superfast Carrera RS, which has now vanished from the brochure. No, the letter S - which has traditionally sent a frisson of excitement through 911 fans, with its added-performance connotations - now means that it comes clothed in the wide-look 911 Turbo body. But it doesn't have the turbo to go with it, or the four-wheel-drive system.

In fact, to use the common parlance of Ford or Vauxhall, this new variant is one up from the base model, with a sports bodykit, smart alloy wheels, a new paint job ('Vesuvius Metallic' - dark purplish-grey to you) a few bits of grey interior trim and that cute spoiler/grille thing on the rear which lifts up when you exceed 50mph. It's also got lower, stiffer suspension and wider wheels and tyres than the standard 911 Coupe. And it costs £66,632 on the road, which is four grand more than the standard car, but the same as the Carrera 4 and only a tad less than the ultra-neat Targa. The real thing - the scary four-wheel-drive 408bhp 911 Turbo - costs an equally fearsome £98,332 by the way.

So, do you really need the wide body? Well, debadging ('deletion of standard designation') is a no-cost option. So convincing people you can afford a hundred grand Turbo is suddenly a lot easier. Maybe that's the point.However, it's the lowered, stiffened, suspension rather than the wide body that gives the Carrera S its very own characteristic driving style among the 911 range - firmness; harshness even. Cruise down a concrete-surfaced motorway and you'll swear the juddery ride will soon have your fillings loosened. Crack down a country secondary road and the tendency for the nose to be jumped off-line by a mid-bend bump will slow your progress as efficiently as a Gatso warning sign.

On smooth, fast, sweeping roads few cars are probably more fun; on twisty, bumpy secondaries, few can be such hard work - even the steering (which is precise and effective and always one of the Porsche's finer points) gets tiringly heavy when you have to wind those wide front wheels through tight turns. Yet it's only when you actually do put your shoulder to the wheel that you discover what a massive amount of grip the car really has.

The Carrera S is nonetheless a fine machine to drive. It's two-wheel drive, of course, which recalls old Porsche horror stories but, reputations notwithstanding, the work the Germans have done on the suspension over the years has made the rear-engined monster a whole lot less likely to suddenly swap ends even if on a long, fast sweeping bend, particularly in the wet, there's still that slight edginess, and an unshakeable suspicion in your own mind that lifting off suddenly would be A Very Bad Thing. However, the standard flat-six engine's 285bhp, though quick enough to blast it to 60mph in a claimed 5.4 seconds, doesn't have the Turbo's raw grunt, so if you get into big trouble it's almost certainly all your own fault.

To help you out, the LP-sized ventilated disc brakes will stop you enormously effectively, even if it is by courtesy of the 911's traditionally wooden-feeling, awkwardly-placed pedal. While we're bitching about the pedals, which on all 911s are somewhere over by the glovebox, the exercise bike-heavy clutch, which works with a strangely sprung six-speed gearbox, has a travel of about four yards and the accelerator feels like something you'd use to pump up a kiddies' paddling pool. But then they're all like that, Sir.

The interior trim on the model we had was beautifully stitched, heavyweight leather, but in a shade which can only be described as raw liver. The little grey bits dotted here and there are very pleasant, though, with little Porsche logos on most in case you forget what you're driving. And the instrument and control layout is dominated by a rev counter emblazoned with an enormous 'Carrera S' logo.

So should you buy one? If you want people to think you can afford a Turbo, but you can't... definitely. But if you actually want ultimate two-wheel drive Porsche performance, hunt out last year's RS instead

Chris Maillard