With increasingly stringent fuel-economy standards looming, most manufacturers seek to clean up their rides without sacrificing power. One industry-wide solution: Slap a turbo on everything. Porsche seems to be joining the mainstream, as a report from Car suggests that the brand’s bread-and-butter, the 911, will sport more turbocharged models when it’s refreshed next year.
Lo!, you say—Porsche already builds a turbocharged 911 called, um, the 911 Turbo. Indeed, it does already produce the wickedly quick 911 Turbo, but Porsche for the first time will bolt turbochargers to the base 911 Carrera and next-step-up 911 Carrera S models. At least, that’s what Car‘s sources say. For the Carrera, this means a reduction in displacement from 3.4 to 2.9 liters, while the Carrera S will keep its 3.8 liters of flat-six.
So what does this mean for the 911 on a macro scale? Well, presumably if the base cars get turbos, so, too, will the myriad spinoffs Porsche has created over the years, from the GTS to the Carrera 4/4S to the Targa. Indications are that the hard-core, track-ready GT3 model will remain naturally aspirated but could go on an even stricter diet to eke out more efficiency.
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So far, this all makes sense. Cue our lamenting the loss of the Carrera models’ sweet-sounding naturally aspirated exhaust note and all that. Where Car’s report loses us is in the power department: The publication’s sources say the base Carrera will produce 400 horsepower—50 more than today’s car and on par with the current Carrera S; the newly turbocharged Carrera S, on the other hand, will belt out 530 horsepower, a gain of 130 horsepower, which would put it solidly in between today’s 911 Turbo and Turbo S. Customarily, the Turbo trails the introduction of a new 911 by a model year or two, but a new Carrera S hasn’t threatened to outpower the older Turbo before. We’re left wondering where Porsche might find an equivalent jump in power for the range-topping Turbo and Turbo S—might we see a 911 making Dodge Hellcat power? We’ll find out when the refreshed 911 (dubbed the 991.2-generation) debuts late next year as a 2016 model.
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via Agya
