I love road trips, but picking the right car can be a challenge. Do you go with something big and comfortable? Choose something simpler but more frugal? Or do you go with a sporty choice?
Well, I may have found the perfect choice in the most unlikely road trip experience of my life. You see, last weekend I took a trip to the IMSA race at Laguna Seca. The legendary circuit is located a few miles from the California coastal town of Monterey, approximately 530km from Los Angeles, where I landed. So, I needed a set of wheels to travel up the picturesque Pacific Coast Highway (or at least as much of it that is open after the LA fires and a landslide further north closed large stretches of it).
Seeing as I was going to the IMSA race to meet up with and cheer on Matt Campbell, it made sense to take a Porsche. But which one? A plush Panamera? A spacious Cayenne? Or what about a frugal, electric-powered Taycan? After all, California has plenty of EV infrastructure.
No, Porsche wanted to stay ‘on theme’ so they suggested I take a 911 Carrera.
Never in my life have I ever hesitated to drive a Porsche 911, but looking at the distances involved and the fact I’d be carrying a week’s worth of luggage for both myself and my passenger, I wondered if perhaps, maybe, potentially in this instance a 911 was the wrong answer…
The truth is, as I was about to find out, the Porsche 911 is never the wrong answer regardless of the question. You see, after spending a literally day behind the wheel (I raked up 24 hours of driving six days) and 1600km (996 miles) I came away with a new appreciation for the German brand’s iconic sports car.
My particular example, amid the myriad of variants, is the updated 992.2 generation 911 Carrera. This is the entry-point to the expansive range, and while the likes of the GTS, GT3 and Turbo get plenty of attention and accolades, anyone who thinks the standard 911 Carrera is in any way the weakest link, then I have 1600km of first-hand experience to tell you you’re wrong.
When I first lay eyes on the Slate Grey Neo example I was initially unconvinced by its Carrera Exclusive Design alloy wheels. It was specified in a simple, understated way, but over the course of my near-week living with it the colour and especially the wheels grew on me to the point I’d very happily make it my own (just as soon as my lotto numbers come up).
So what makes the 911 Carrera such a great road trip car? Basically it does all the things you’d assume it does badly surprisingly well.
For starters, the front boot could accommodate a cabin-sized suitcase and a pair of backpacks, while my larger duffel bag was able to fit comfortably across the back seat. However, for the return journey space was even better thanks to a luggage hack that Matt Campbell revealed. You can actually lower the rear seat backs and create a reasonably large (for a sports car) luggage shelf. This allowed for my duffel and a number of smaller shopping bags to fit behind the front seats.
Speaking of seats, while climbing down into and up out of the bucket seats seems like it’s getting harder as I get older, once you’re inside they are fantastic. You might reasonably think that sports bucket seats would be hard and horrible for hours in the car, notching up kay after kay, but the reality is very different.
Once you’re comfortably in the seat, the low-slung nature of the 911 means your legs can be stretched out, while the sporty nature of the seat supports you in all the right places. I’ve spent hours behind the wheels of hundreds of cars, but few left me as fresh as nearly seven hours in the 911. It was perhaps the biggest shock of taking the 911 on such a long and testing road trip, because I would have otherwise dismissed such a sporty car as unbearable over such a long distance.
Then there’s the performance and fuel efficiency of the 911 Carrera with its 3.0-litre turbocharged flat-six engine that makes 290kW and can accelerate 0-100km/h in just 4.1 seconds. Of more importance to me, given the length of my drive, was its efficiency, because you don’t want to be filling up every few hours. Instead, I filled up once and needed one small top up to get through six days and 1600km. Across all that driving the 911 ended up using 9.6L/100km, an impressive return from what is a highly-tuned performance engine.
But what makes the 911 Carrera such a great road trip car is its handling, poise and precision. It’s an easy, relaxed car to drive but because it’s finely-tuned it gives you confidence that you’re always in control. While cruising down the freeway was easy (if a little noisy on America’s concrete highways) anytime the road got windy, the Porsche came into its element.
Nowhere was that more evident than a short drive away from Laguna Seca on the Pacific Coast Highway from Monterey into Big Sur. The road clings to the side of the hills as it snakes its way down the coastline, with breathtaking views the entire way – changing from blue ocean to the green rolling hills and then the darker tones of the woods before emerging on the coast again.
This is the kind of road I’ve always thought was built for the Porsche 911 Carrera. But after spending so much time, across so many different conditions I realised that any road is built for the Porsche 911 Carrera.
Discussion about this post