I spent almost two hours driving and riding in the CGT on highways, back rural roads with highspeed, low and midspeed curves and turns and fast straight aways. The top was on and off so I experienced the full "monty". Here are my brief impressions.

The exterior of the car is very simple but functional. The opening in the front and behind the front wheels are not covered. With the front opening you can put your hand and arm all the way in with hitting anything. The opening behind the front tire and in front of the doors allows one to see the front tires. Unless the panels behind the front tires are covered or protected(a clear bra)they will receive the usual road damage as the front bumper experiences. The car is very attractive and does get its fair share of attention.

Getting into the car is difficult more so than getting into my 360 Spider. You need to first side sideways and lift your feet up and turn into the car. It is a very tight fit (I am 5'11" weigh 180pds) very similar to being in a cockpit Though the car appears wide, once in you realize how small it is. The seats are very comfortable and serve their purpose while in high speed driving especially in turns. The car I drove I believe had the large seats (they can be ordered by size). I was so impressed with the sport seats I plan to order them for my 430 when Ferrar calls me in a couple of months.


Once in the car it has excellent visibility better than my 360 Spider. The instruments are easy to see and read. I love the position of the gear shift. It is very comfortable and easy to use. However its position does require a lot of space and lends to the appearance that the cabin is small. The pedals are comfortably located but do require a lot of time to adjust yourself to heel and toe. The clutch is heavy more so than other clutches I have driven.

Starting the car is a sensory experience. The sound of the engine is addictive and intoxicating. Hearing it transforms you into feeling you are Shumey ready to hit the track. Yet In idle the engine has a tinny sound sound much like it need a valve adjustment.

Putting the car in gear and letting the clutch out is an requires very special care and concentration. I did not stall it initially but when I tried to follow the Porsche suggested procedure of giving it no gas as the clutch was slowly released I stalled it a couple times.

Once you get rolling the car really shows its stuff. It has a broad power torque range and you feel the power immediately. The gear throw is crisp and fairly short. I missed once going from second to fifth instead of third. Once into speed the car shows its beautiful balance and handling. It took high speed curves with little tilting and was very grounded. Braking was a joy with little to no front end dipping. Steering was very sharp and responsive. You felt the road through the steering wheel. Every dip nuance or pebble was transmitted back through the wheel.

The ride at speed was almost harsh. If you were blind folded and put in the car without being told what it is you would know immediately this was a race car. Your body felt the road as much as the steering wheel did. More importantly, speed in the car felt very enhanced. By that I mean as you traveled at high speed you would swear you were do 30 or 40 mph faster than you were actually going. I believe it is related to the closeness of the car to the road, the ride itself and the engine roar behind you.

The car felt much better with the top off. With the top on it was somewhat confining.(I may not be a good judge since I only drive my Spider with the top down.) At very high speed 125mph the car felt a little loose (seemed to sway side to side). I was a passenger at the time but the driver (who is an outstanding driver) felt the same way. Again this probably is related to the type of road we were on. On an abandoned airstrip I suppose it would be different but the real world has real roads to drive on.

My overall impression of this car is it is a very special car for a serious racer (note I did not use the term driver). This is a track car. Driving in the city would be excruciating. Every start would be a time of considerable apprehension. Driving this car requires total attention and concentration. It is fast, powerful and very sensitive to drive.

My conclusion is the CGT will smoke my 360 Spider in every category but one:....FUN FACTOR!. If I had both cars in the garage and I wanted to take a drive whether to the store, Starbucks or lunch/dinner I would chose the Spider. If I want to do some real serious track work I do not believe anything would beat driving the CGT.

 

Great review. Thanks for sharing your fortunate test drive experience!!!

 

Nice write up Nick. I've often wondered how one could drive this car ( re: it's sensitive CC clutch ) on San Francisco's/ Bay Area's hills in traffic without apprehension of constant embarrassing stalling . Could work as a cruiser in Florida , though !

 

ok, i was the other driver nick is referring to. what nick didn't say is this opportunity was the result of one of the most generous and selfless people i've thus far been able to meet. i'm still in awe he let me take his car and encouraged me to drive it in a manner that would allow me to know what i was getting myself into. of course i didn't push the car anything like i would have had it been my own because i couldn't live with myself if i had hurt the car after he had been so very generous.

the car is indeed extremely cramped (very race car like) and getting into the driver seat is a ***** (at least there is no steering wheel on the passenger side which is still no picnic) and i'm a fit 190 lbs at 6'. the car had two problems that were significant to me with the later being terminal. the first is the clutch which does in fact take away greatly from the experience. nick's right. while i stalled initially the first time i took off, it was somewhat tolerable (not a description appropriate for a $1/2 mil outlay) when feathering it off the line. the "just let the clutch out with no gas, and then go" method worked once and failed miserably a 1/2 dozen other times before i abandoned it completely. the second is how nervous the car is during cornering on less than perfect roads. the traction control light came on once in a corner when the car wasn't anywhere near it's limits only because it is so taut that it hops you off of full contact patch adhesion with the road. unfortunately one of my primary methods of enjoyment for this car would be moutain roads in a very aggressive manner. i didn't feel there would be much enjoyment at all with this car as it takes 100% of your concentration 100% of the time in that situation (and i wasn't pushing it remotely close to as hard as i push my 911 in the corners). i just did not at all have the confidence in the corners. my current 911 was similar when i had the H&R coilovers on it when it was set way low. it was just too stiff to stay in the lane (without traction control being engaged) on curves with bumps. oddly enough, it makes the same flywheel rattling noise at low rpms that my 911 does ever since i put the lightweight flywheel in it. additionally, i bottomed out slightly once during the drive in those corners. when i told the owner later when we met up, he said he was shocked it was only once since he does considerably more often during that particular run! he is on his second front spoiler in a mere 4 months.

the acceleration on the car was as advertised (brutal) as were the fantastic brakes. like nick said, i felt like the car was doing 150 at 100 (and it took about the same level of attention since the road was not flat and straight)! i was fairly shocked and felt it would be just the opposite. the upside to that is that the car's "experience" can fully be had at much less than the insane speeds previously thought.

the shifter is just brilliant. however, as nick said, they took up a ton (too much) of leg and arm room positioning the thing up there. also as nick said, heel/toe was quite difficult because the pedals were so far apart. i thought this very strange given the taxi ride in leipzig in the cgt was complete with heel/toe blipping downshifts all over the place. i got it right a few times in 3 gear and suspect maybe with practice i could improve. it might also have been due to the fact i was driving without shoes and a wider footprint via the soles might have helped.

the entire experience with the top on was not real great (boring and noisy - flywheel around 2k rpm) when not pushing it (ie: in very moderate traffic), and was completely different (and better) with the top off. it was kind of a sureal moment when i was crusing with the top down and said "this is pretty nice" and realized the car was the most fun when it was being normally driven on the highway. i thought to myself, "i'm going to pay $1/2 mil for a driving experience i can get from a number of convertibles"?

i have to sadly admit i am in the process of cancelling my order. i'm the guy who loves cars raw and modified my 911 with supercharger, GT3 seats, GT3 adjustable sway bars, and PSS9 coilovers. however, this car was just too raw for me given how i plan to use the car. on a smooth track, i'm sure it would kick serious *** just like it did at leipzig. i'm so very disappointed because i have no idea what to do know. the 360 spider is a *****. the stradale (which i drove for the first time today) is absolutely brilliant except it has a top :-( it could also use more torque (hello F430), but there is a 600 hp supercharger available for it. there just isn't anything that delivers the stradale experience with just a bit more power in a cab.

 

wow, ben. good thing you got to drive one before taking delivery. so can you live with a coupe stradale? or you gonna wait for something else? how about an elise to get you by? surely won't be the same as driving a cgt or ferrari around, but at 10% of the price of the CGT, and probably as much fun, why not? Heck, the tax on a CGT would cost about as much as an Elise!!

 

I'll probably never get a chance to drive one of these monsters, however both of your write ups are brilliant and very informative, thank you for sharing this...

 

Nick and Ben,

Thanks so much for taking the time to write up your impressions of your "stick time" in the Carrera GT.

It was very interesting to read.

 

ben - would the new Murcielago Roadster not meet your needs?...or if you're really determined perhaps federalise the Pagani Zonda S 7.3 Roadster....

 

Thanks for sharing your experiences, guys.

Ben, sounds like a tough decision, but better to make it now than after delivery.

 

thanks guys. i felt like such a traitor. the car is beautiful and is an engineering masterpiece that i've been reading everything about for a couple years now. i'm so very disappointed it isn't the 2 different purpose cars (a dr jekyl - comfy around town cab and mr hyde brutal and visceral on command) rolled into one i was hoping. for someone who primarily wants to use it for the track, it's just fabulous - provided the track is fairly smooth. however, i envision hell as dying and being put in a cgt for eternity in either rush hour or on a road backed up by an accident - on a hill.

all that said, i did go out to leipzig to experience the car and left very mildly disappointed but still fully in lust of the car and comfortable with my purchase. some of that disappointment was a delayed delivery (which now seems a blessing in disquise) and some of it was probably unreal expectations of what $1/2 mil car should be. i'm not sure why they didn't allow deposit holders to drive the car in leipzig on the track in that controlled enviornment, but part of me wonders if i didn't find out yesterday why not.

"would the new Murcielago Roadster not meet your needs?..."

too heavy, awd, lambo legendary quality and service.

"the Pagani Zonda S 7.3 Roadster...."

that would probably be a great car, but porsche reliability it probably doesn't have and service would be tough

 

i could treat the stradale like a beat up ole toyota corrola when considering the drive off after income tax diff between the cgt and stradale. after seeing and hearing the elise, i think it's a very cool car though i've not yet driven one. however, i just can't say enough good things about the stradale save for the low torque. it's so very purposeful. the car is just so perfectly balanced. for example, it's totally flat cornering while being completely compliant over road imperfections. under 4k rpm, you can putz around town and your neighborhood with very low noise, but when you want it (above 4k), a sound so beautiful, race-car like, and purposeful screams from the car. the interior is a stripped out version of the 360, but it has enough detail to make it just right - carbon fiber door panels/console, leather bottom dash and seats, radio, a/c, and electric windows. they just did a fabulous job with the car and i'd imagine an F430 spider will be a wonderful car equipped with sport seats with the increase in torque to near the mid 300s.

 

Tough break, Ben. Having said that, I am very impressed with your ability to seriously understand what your needs are. Most people would go with the flow and buy the car. Much respect.

T

 

Thanks Tuner, but I would have been a go with the flow if not for the generousity of the owner of this particular car. His entire goal for the day was to make sure I was making a completely informed decision. In fact, he preferred I share my experience which could have a detrimental affect on resale of his car rather than keep it to myself until he sold and have others not know full well what they were getting into. He has two other friends which both bought the car as well and all three feel they made a mistake. One of them actually drove the CGT and cancelled his order only to reinstate it short after because he feared regrets later. His car is for sale after 250 miles. This is one of the few times in life when I decided to learn from other people's mistakes instead of my own.

 

I've had the same feelings about this car. I expected it to have all the beauty of the 959, 930, 993TT and 996TT and then some. It just doesn't seem to be "everything we know so far". Instead, it almost seems to have been built by another company with little regard for what people liked in the previous cars. Having owned various Porsche and Ruf turbos since 1987, this car seems like a step backwards for Porsche.

 

Wonderful reviews and thoughts guys, thanks for sharing.

The CGT was born of a leftover cancelled LMP project that needed to get justified, and paid for. It was a brilliant solution to how to recoup some cash from a still born racer, so I'm not surprised to hear it is too much of a racer.

I think you guys are very right about the 'fun factor', the ultimate is rarely more fun, that is true of bikes, boats and broads and most other things I've come across.

However, since the CGT is out of the pipes, and Porsche are thrilled with the acres of ink that is has produced, they know they'll need another 'ultimate'. Imagine a new breed of 911, built of composit materials, weighing in at around 2,200lbs, making 500hp. Now that is the kind of supercar that I'd like to see, and it is very doable at a ~300K price point.