Pros: astounding speed, brilliant chassis, fabulous cabin, striking looks
Cons: too-small paddle shifts, exorbitantly expensive
Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet Design
As with Turbo models of years past, the latest version is wider than any other current Porsche 911 in the range – by 45mm at the front and 20mm at the rear. The T-Hybrid also sits on 20-inch front, 21-inch rear alloy wheels which are finished in ‘Turbonite’, a bronze-grey colour exclusive to the Turbo models, and it has discreet ‘Turbo S’ badging at the rear and on the bottoms of the front doors.
Slight tidying of the entire Mk8 911 family’s appearance revolves mainly around the lighting elements fore and aft, which in turn frees up space in the bumpers. The 911 Turbo S utilises this with slatted active air intakes in the nose, as well as a deployable front splitter and a rear wing which looks fixed, but which has an extendable element to it. Along with the beefy rear diffuser area and distinctive squared-off exhaust exits, the overall effect of the Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet is one of quiet yet distinctive muscularity.
Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet Interior
There are no major changes to the Porsche 911’s cabin that are specific to the Turbo S T-Hybrid, save for a few detail flourishes like model emblems, graphics in the 12.6-inch digital instrument cluster and a red button in the centre of the drive-mode switch on the steering wheel. This is no bad thing, though, because the present-day 911 has one of the best car interiors going, for any price – it’s beautifully built, ergonomically bang on the money and, from a technological perspective, modern enough to look cutting edge and operate in slick order, but yet not so dependent on its in-car electronics that it detracts from the driving experience.
It’s a brilliant interior, and furthermore for cars of this rarefied class the Turbo S is surprisingly practical. It has four seats – of a fashion – when many rivals have just the two, while interior storage is decent and there’s up to 291 litres of luggage capacity on offer; this figure made up of both the cargo area under the 911’s bonnet, as well as what you can stash on the small rear seats if there are no people in them.
Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet Performance & Drive
The big news for the facelifted update of the 911 Turbo S is that is has become a hybrid, as given away by the ‘T-Hybrid’ part of its name. This uses the system already seen in the 911 GTS, only for the Turbo S it uses two electric turbochargers instead of one, and it has a more potent electric motor housed in its eight-speed transmission.
It also has a more powerful state-of-tune for the 3.6-litre flat-six petrol engine that forms the basis of the T-Hybrid system, with the net outcome being that this is the most powerful road-going production 911 the world has yet seen: with 711hp and 800Nm, it is 61hp stronger than the plain-petrol Turbo S it replaces and a good 170hp in advance of the GTS which uses similar drivetrain tech.
The results on the road are startling. This is an extraordinarily rapid car, its sheer strength all around the dial of the rev counter above the point of 2,000rpm only hinted at by a quoted 2.6-second 0-100km/h time. With the instant bite of four-wheel drive and the whipcrack responses of the PDK gearbox, the Turbo S T-Hybrid packs devastating acceleration. Treat its throttle with extreme care.
Thankfully, due to clever adaptive chassis tech with active anti-roll properties, rear-wheel steering and adjustable dampers, the 911 Turbo S can handle all this mammoth power. Beautiful feel through the steering wheel, immense levels of grip and traction, and a clear sense of balance communicated from the underpinnings of the car to the driver make it a delight to drive in the corners, just as much as it is a hoot destroying straights with the cataclysmic punch of the T-Hybrid powertrain.
Yet it’s a refined and comfortable machine, too, easing through motorway work and crawling around towns in a docile, friendly way with equal aplomb. Even the soft-top model is not particularly noisy at speed, hood up or down, and so when the 911 Turbo S is not hard-charging along challenging roads in a fury of part-electric speed, it fulfils an admirable dual brief as a cosseting, rewarding grand tourer when driven in a gentler manner.
Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet Pricing
No Porsche 911 Cabriolet is cheap, as the starting price of the range is €225,000. But, at €405,111, the price of the Turbo S T-Hybrid is almost as astounding as its brutal acceleration. In its defence, no comparable performance convertible of a similar ilk – such as a McLaren Artura Spider, Ferrari 296 GTS or Bentley Continental GTC Speed – would be less expensive than it is, while the standard kit count of the Porsche is also generous as befits its flagship status. Nevertheless, you’d need Mariana-Trench-deep pockets to buy the Turbo S in the first place, much less run it – we saw 20 litres/100km from our 140km test drive in the car, while the annual motor tax bill remains at the highest level of €2,400 per annum due to CO2 emissions of 266g/km.
Carzone Verdict
We have two critical observations of the Porsche 911 Turbo S T-Hybrid Cabriolet. The first is minor – the paddle shifts for its PDK gearbox are just too small. The second is slightly less easy to ignore – it’s phenomenally expensive. But cars this scintillating are rarely financial bargains. In every other respect, the explosive new Turbo S T-Hybrid is absolutely sublime and delivers a thoroughly wonderful driving experience which few competitor vehicles could ever hope to match.