Went to Austin yesterday to the 2017 911 introduction at COTA. What an experience. Each driver gets one lap around the course(which is a remarkable track). A trainer leads a group of about 4 cars. He was driving a Panamera. The only drawback is if the driver in front of you is slow. I was behind an older man who was braking in the middle of the turns and I nearly hit him a couple of times. I should have passed him but you aren't supposed to. At the end of the lap you swap seats with your driving partner. The guy I drove with was fearless and passed the car in front of us by the 3rd turn. He was able to reach 125 on the straightway. I was disappointed with the 112 I achieved due to the guy in front. We were driving a Carrera S with PDK in Sport Plus. I can't say enough about the PDK. In sport plus the shifts are extremely hard and crisp. I didn't use the paddle shifters but my partner did part of the time. You wouldn't use sport Plus on city streets. Just too harsh. Sport would be perfect. I don't think you could turn the car over if you tried. It is remarkable. I had driven an R8 several months ago at one of the Richard Petty experience courses. It was an excellent car but I feel the 911 surpasses it. I hope Porsche repeats this again next year.
I also hope I win the lottery so I can buy one.

 

Hi PorscheLady! I was there too in the 6:45 group with my red Simpson helmet... I was wondering if any of the other Rennlister's other 6SpeedOnliner's would be too but I didn't know how to identify any of us. There were more people than I expected. It was a nicely done event. I don't know if the earlier cars ran in the rain but luckily the track was bone dry by the time I went out.

I was fortunate and got to run hot most of the time being in the car directly behind the instructor. He did slow down a couple of times on the first half of the track for the others in the five car group to catch up... what a shame... but we did get to run really hot through enough of the curves and really hot down the back straight through turns 12-15.

So the best particular call outs on the cars to me were:
- I was initially disappointed at ending up in the black non-S Carrera launch car without PSE, but the good news was I wouldn't have known it wasn't an S from its handling, power, and sound if it wasn't for the black calipers and badging. I was impressed with this car, I guess its likely the S would have been even more outstanding.
- When riding as a passenger but with the other drivers doing a great job, we came into turn 12 very hot at around 140 with the tires squealing and closing on the instructor faster than we should have been as we entered the curve. The non-S brakes and stability controls did a fantastic job controlling the situation though without over intervention despite entering the turn while still so hot.
- I would have never known I was in a turbo. Others could hear the turbo song but I have trouble with high pitches and couldn't hear them with the helmet on. To be fair though, the only time I was under 4k or so RPM was at the start but others reported great satisfaction with low end pull. I never felt anything I'd consider turbo lag and I've had laggy turbo cars in my non-Porsche years before.
- When standing in the pits trackside the cars sounded much better than I was expecting with the turbos, but only when the cars were fairly nearby. At a distance they are more reserved pretty much like the current cars. Overall, they seem to have done a great job recovering the exhaust sound despite the turbo, especially with the PSEs.
- The PSE seems like a must-have on these cars. My non-PSE car sounded better than I expected, but the other guys I knew that ran the PSE cars said the on-throttle sound, overrun crackle, and downshifting blip sounds were fantastic. From their reports, Porsche has finally made the step-up with the PSE sound the best its been since it was toned down in the 997.2 model years.
- Despite their advice otherwise, I went full manual on the PDK since I've been on the track a few times and know the turns. The downshift blip you get is much more pronounced than the one in the 997.2 PDKs, and with the improved exhaust and intake sounds (at least as I heard them from inside the cabin) it sounded quite good despite not being a PSE! On the streets, I could easily see myself always staying in manual and keeping the RPMs up a bit just to get the downshift blips and exhaust/intake music.
- I experienced absolutely no understeer in both hard braking into the corners or sweeping hard under throttle. In the esses through 12-15 I pushed really hard and stayed right on the line I was aiming for (kissing the bump strips at the edges). I'm sure the tires were nice and toasty by the time I drove and the track surface was great, so maybe that helped. I guess one of my biggest take-aways is I felt the car was more balanced than mine at the edge.
- I hear some folks talk about how big the 991s are. But to be honest, from the inside this car didn't feel any bigger than mine and it felt even tighter and more nimble to me. Even looking at it from the outside it didn't seem big... I'd guess all of the new edges and narrower lines on the lights help make it seem more trim.

Too bad it was just two hard laps in the cars (one as driver and one as passenger), but it is a long 3.4 mile track with lots of varied turns so the experience was still reasonable.

All of the above said, the 2017 911 doesn't feel radically different than my 997.2 if you set aside the obviously more modern interior and electronics. However, it certainly is a notable step up in the refinement of the pretty much all of the details. Keep in mind that I'm comparing a non-S car to my fairly loaded S though. If I'm already thinking that the drivability of that non-S exceeds my S, then I'd love to discover what an S might feel like! Maybe I'll have to do something about that.

 

I came from Killeen and got there about 4:30 and the track was dry so I guess no one had to deal with the rain. I drove through some tremendous downpours between salado and Jarrell but the rain cleared out by the time I got to the toll road.
Our 911 is an '08 C4 with manual 6 speed so I've had little experience with the PDK. My wife bought a 15 Macan S about a month ago but I haven't driven it much and only tried the paddle shifters once. She gives me hell when I get spirited. It is quite impressive, as I said before.
With the helmet on and my bad hearing, I couldn't comment on exhaust note. However, the wife's Macan sounds quite throaty.
I didn't know anyone there but established a good rapport with my driving partner. He had driven earlier but got lucky when someone didn't show up and got to drive again with me. I wish I had let him go first so I could familiarize myself better with the track. We drove at 6:30.
All in all it was a great experience. Porsche spent a lot of money. I hope I get an invitation next year if they do it again.
And...did you see the girls that showed up late?

 

Everything I read about the '17 911 is impressive. I have not yet seen one in the flesh (sheetmetal?) but I do like some of the engineering and styling cues taken from the Porsche Turbo. My fear is once I sit in one or take one for a test drive (manual is mandatory) I will end up face down and buried alive by my desire to own Porsche's latest temptation. I dearly love the driving enjoyment my '09 Carrera S provides. It's the first car I've owned that I haven't grown tired of driving after a couple of years; so for the sake of my wallet and my health (i.e my wife would knife me in my sleep) it's probably for the best that I avoid the new models and remain satisfied with what I have.

 

Yes, and they certainly liked being seen too!

 

I was more than glad to accommodate them. Just can't figure out what they were there for. certainly not to drive in those clothes and shoes.

 

sounds like fun, what no pics of the girls.

 

I hope you guys took pictures, of the girls that is in their "clothes and shoes". Cmon man don't do this to us.

 

I just made a big correction to my original post that helps explain some things with respect to handling. PASM is now standard in all models as I just learned reading the book/brochure they gave us yesterday, so now we do have more of a direct comparison between my 997.2 with PASM and the 991.2.

Yeah, sorry about not getting girl photos... I didn't want to seem like the leering horny old man. I kept my leering fairly discreet. I did post a few photos over on my Rennlist post though, they aren't great but with all of the other distractions that is all I got. If you are interested see: http://rennlist.com/forums/997-forum...at-cota.html#4 The digital window sticker for that car is over there too.