First drive review: 2022 Porsche 911 GTS improves upon greatness

Start with the balance, poise, agility, and stability of a rear-engine car 58 years in the making. Add more power, bigger brakes, extra traction, and all the right performance equipment. What you get is a great car made even better. That’s the formula for the 2022 Porsche 911 GTS.

Offered in coupe, cabriolet, and Targa body styles, with rear- or all-wheel drive, the 992-generation GTS not only improves upon a legend, but also excels as a weekend track toy right out of the box, at least in coupe form. It even comes at a slight discount.

Porsche invited Motor Authority to Atlanta to drive the 2022 911 GTS coupe and Targa. It rained. Hard. So Porsche canceled the trip and invited us back again later in the week. This time the weather held and the 911 GTS showed that great can get greater.

The changes start with more power for the rear-mounted twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter flat-6. It’s more of a cheat code than a physical change as the turbos from the 911 Carrera S. Here they generate 18.6 psi of boost versus 16 psi in the S. That results in an extra 30 hp and 30 lb-ft of torque for totals of 473 hp and 420 lb-ft.

2022 Porsche 911 GTS coupe

On the highway run to twisty rural roads in north Georgia, the boxer engine felt much like it does in the S model that we named the Motor Authority Best Car To Buy 2020: strong down low, relentless throughout the rev range, and more powerful than the numbers indicate. Porsche says the GTS bests the S by only a tenth of a second to 0-60 mph, at 3.1 seconds with the standard 8-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission and 3.9 seconds with the no-cost option 7-speed manual. The manual may be slower, but I’d still choose it for its slick shifts, especially with the GTS model’s standard short shifter.

The seat-of-the-pants feel may be similar, but the aural experience is quite different. The engine’s thrum and blats are more present in the cabin, especially in the Lightweight package-equipped Carmine Red 911 GTS coupe I drove out to our lunch destination. Porsche removes 3.1 lb of sound deadener from every GTS and the Lightweight package cuts another 3.5 lb. A standard Sport exhaust system, usually a $2,950 option, ensures that the signature Porsche flat-6 sound always rides shotgun.

While the engine is mostly just louder, the suspension stiffens the ride considerably. In the interest of greater traction, the GTS adopts the suspension from the 911 Turbo. It uses helper springs at the rear axle to keep the 315/30R21 Goodyear Eagle F1 tires plastered to the pavement. The base 911 is already an incredibly stable car with excellent traction that’s hard to upset. These helper springs sit at the top of the coil springs and keep the main springs under pressure and push the tires to the ground.

Stiffer springs and a 0.4-inch lower ride height also fight the 911’s already minimal body lean. Forty percent stiffer up front and 22% stiffer in the rear compared to the S model, the springs turn the 911 Carrera S’s ride overly firm on pockmarked roads as I learned in the 911 Turbo S model I drove in Wisconsin.

That wasn’t the case here as I sliced and diced through twisty Georgia roads. Smooth pavement let the 911 GTS enjoy its traction advantage without ruining the ride. The car’s weighty, quick, and steady steering helped me put the car exactly where I wanted it, and the additional traction kept the car stuck to the road through high-speed corners. There’s so much traction that I would have had to pull some unsafe maneuvers to break the tires loose.

2022 Porsche 911 GTS coupe

A few performance options also gave the coupe test car less body lean and made it more nimble. The $3,170 active anti-roll bars fought what little body lean the lowered and stiffened suspension left, $9,870 carbon-ceramic brakes reduced unsprung weight and delivered racetrack-ready stopping power, and the Lightweight package chopped another 55 lb while adding rear-wheel steering that helped the car cut tighter low-speed corners.

In addition to the sound deadener, the Lightweight package swaps in carbon-fiber buckets (buyers can opt for 18-way power-adjustable seats at no cost but the additional 21 lb they add), replaces the rear and side windows with lightweight glass, deletes the rear seat and floor mats, and uses a lightweight lithium-ion battery. The package also includes specific rear spoiler programming that adds 4 degrees of tilt angle for up to 66 lb of additional downforce at the GTS’s 193-mph top speed.

2022 Porsche 911 GTS coupe

An overly stiff ride will never plague the 911 Targa 4 GTS like the Chalk-hued, automatic-equipped car I drove later in the day. The Targa gets none of the suspension changes of the coupe and comes with the same ride height, springs, and damper settings as the Targa 4S.

My Targa tester had the GTS’s standard iron brakes, which feature 16.1-inch front rotors and 15-inch rear rotors versus the 13.8-inch rotors the S model sports at all four wheels. The coupe’s carbon-ceramics measured 16.1 inches up front and 15.4 inches in the rear. Both types of brakes provided strong stopping power through nicely weighted pedals.

2022 Porsche 911 Targa 4 GTS

Porsche also blesses the GTS with some interior features that heighten the experience. A small-diameter, synthetic suede-wrapped steering wheel provides a tactile feel, and the material also adorns the armrests, manual shift knob, and seat centers. Despite their carbon-fiber backs and six-way manual adjustments, the sport seats are wide enough to be comfortable for people larger than the average jockey. Brushed black aluminum trim heightens the sporty and sinister look. And the standard Sport Chrono package adds a digital and analog dash clock, Sport+ and Individual drive modes, a Sport Response button that puts the engine on high alert, launch control, and active engine and transmission mounts.

The 911 GTS announces its presence with the Sport Design front and rear fascias with the front painted partially black, black exterior trim, dark-tinted LED headlights and a matching taillight strip, black scripts, black exhaust tips, and a black Targa bar.

2022 Porsche 911 Targa 4 GTS

All of these features come at a bit of a discount. Spec a 911 S like the GTS and it would cost roughly $20,000 in options, but you wouldn’t get the extra 30 hp and 30 lb-ft of torque, the center-locking wheels, the bigger brakes, the rear helper springs and stiffer front and rear springs, or the shorter shift lever.

Still, the 2022 Porsche 911 GTS requires a steep investment. It will start at $138,050 for the coupe and top out at $158,150 for the cabriolet and Targa when it goes on sale early in 2022.

Aside from ride quality, the changes from a 911 Carrera S to a 911 GTS make a great car even greater, but they’re best measured on a racetrack instead of the street. The additional power, improved traction, stronger brakes, and Lightweight package would each cut a few tenths of a second from lap times. That’s mostly for bragging rights, but in the sports car world, bragging rights mean a lot.

Porsche paid for a hotel and two flights to Atlanta for Motor Authority to bring you this firsthand report.

This article was originally published by Google.com. Read the original article here.