2015 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS: The Sweetest 911 Package?

Wiggle, wiggle.  Coming downhill out of turn four at Willow Springs International Raceway carrying a little too much speed in the 2015 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS, I was immediately made aware of the coupe’s 3.8-litre flat-six engine’s mounting position at the very rear of the car, hanging out over the back axle and ready to do its best imitation of a boomerang should I over-estimate my skill level in tackling turn five.  Fighting the instinct to lift off the throttle– an invitation to pirouette the 911 if ever there was one – I stayed light on the gas and aimed the car at the corner turn-in point, tapping the brakes slightly to settle the car and bleed off a little speed before pulling up and out through the S-curve that guards the road course’s short back straight.

It’s a drama-free on-track narrative that indicates just how far the Porsche 911’s chassis tuning has come, as well as how amazingly effective electronic stability control systems have been in transforming the automaker’s iconic sports car from widow-maker to hero-maker.  The 911 Carrera GTS is the newest and most powerful member of the current-generation Carrera family, and according to Stuttgart it’s intended to occupy the no-man’s land that exists between the Carrera S and the competition-inspired 911 GT3.  The reason I’m at Willow Springs is to assess the veracity of this claim, and try to determine whether the GTS package is a next-step or step-over for performance-hungry Porsche fans.

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What’s In The Box?

The 2015 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS isn’t a dramatic improvement over the Carrera S model that sits just beneath it in the pecking order – rather, it’s a question of combining hotter performance with better packaging.  Specifically, the GTS trim bundles together a number of options that one would have to pay extra for with the Carrera S, including the track-oriented Sport Chrono package, an active sport exhaust system, and Porsche’s PASM adaptive suspension.  You also get Alcantara leather seats and a leather interior as standard equipment, HID headlights with unique smoked lenses, and 20-inch centre lock rims. Given the typically inflated cost of individual Porsche options, this helps to make the near-$18k price differential between the Carrera S and the Carrera GTS that much easier to swallow.

Deeper Breathing, Wider Stance

Open the access panel at the rear of the 911 Carrera GTS and you’ll find the same 3.8-litre, horizontally-opposed six-cylinder motor unit that takes up space in the Carrera S’ engine compartment.  X-ray the GTS mill’s intake, however, and you’ll discover what Porsche calls a ‘variable resonance induction system’ that, together with revised intake valves and more aggressive exhaust tuning have yielded an additional 30 horsepower over the S model’s 400 ponies (torque remains flat at 325 lb-ft).  Stirring the pot are your choice of either a seven-speed manual or seven-speed PDK dual-clutch automated manual transmission, and Porsche claims a 0-100 km/h time of four seconds with the latter installed – about the same as what you’d get out of a Carrera S.

AWD versus RWD versus Topless

As with the previous edition of the GTS, regardless of whether you order the Carrera 4 GTS with its all-wheel drive system or the standard rear-wheel drive Carrera GTS you get the same swollen haunches and wider track at the rear of the car (in this case an additional 36 mm).  Moving beyond the visual aspect, it’s clear that there’s a difference in driving personality between AWD and RWD editions of the GTS that reveals itself most distinctly on a road course, where the former exchanges increased cornering grip and a more settled character at high speeds for less steering feel through the wheel.

You can also get the Carrera GTS in cabriolet form, and while the reduced chassis stiffness compared to the coupe was immediately noticeable at Willow Springs, on the ride back to Pasadena it was almost completely imperceptible.  The GTS cab was perfectly willing to snake through canyon twists and turns very much too fast, providing me with the utmost confidence in its ability to handle the many long downhill runs that never straightened out for longer than 10 metres or so.

No GT3, But Near-GT3

I want to be clear: the 2015 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS isn’t intended as a GT3 substitute, but rather a more powerful version of the 911 formula that doesn’t sacrifice day-to-day comfort in the pursuit of performance.  But consider this: the 2015 model’s engine output is a mere five horses down on the last-gen GT3, and it also happens to be the mightiest rear-wheel drive coupe Porsche offers with a manual transmission lurking on the order sheet.  This isn’t a coincidence.  Some will have to think long and hard about whether the incremental performance gains of the Carrera GTS over the Carrera S are worth paying so much for, but as past sales figures indicate, it’s likely that nearly a quarter of 911 customers will be impressed enough by the extra gear that they’ll happily sign on the dotted line.