2017 Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet

There are two ways to look at the freshened-for-2017 Porsche 911 Turbo S cabriolet: as an abomination that has forsaken its roots, so powerful, so complex, so opulent, and so expensive that the playful spirit of the original 356 is utterly lost; or as a transcendent 911, a convertible hypercar with seating for four. We pondered both while putting a stunning Night Blue Metallic Turbo S cabriolet with a brown top through its paces in Southern California and found plenty of evidence to support each argument. No matter your sentiment, one must respect that the new 991.2-based 911 Turbo S ragtop is the quickest four-seat convertible that we’ve ever tested.

A new, Turbo S–specific turbocharger with larger impeller wheels raises output of the 3.8-liter flat-six to 580 horsepower at 6750 rpm and 553 lb-ft of torque from 2250 rpm—20 ponies more than the 991.1-generation model. Revised all-wheel drive and traction-management systems distribute torque between the front and rear axles more precisely, says Porsche. And the standard Sport Chrono package adopts the dial-type driving-mode selector found in other 911/718 models, with its Normal, Sport, Sport+, and programmable Individual modes, plus a Sport Response button that instantly sets the powertrain and drive systems on high alert for 20 seconds.

The primary result is pure, unmitigated accelerative force that hurls the car forward like a 3736-pound stone in a mile-long slingshot. On smooth surfaces, there’s zero waiting—all four wheels find traction instantly. Anything not secured in the cabin becomes fused to the seatbacks. Hats tumble from heads, and loose change is liberated from pockets. Do this with the top down and unsecured items may well become lost items. Go full tilt on uneven surfaces or broken pavement and you might learn what spinning all four wheels feels like—it’s not as much fun as it sounds—but fortunately, loss of traction at any wheel almost never occurs.

Look Out, Veyron Drivers

From rest, 60 mph can now arrive in a face-peeling 2.6 seconds, two-tenths quicker than the 991.1-based Turbo S cabriolet we tested in 2015 (in the exact same blue/brown livery, incidentally). That’s 0.1 second quicker than the McLaren P1, even with the 2017 Turbo S coupe, and just 0.1 second behind the Ferrari LaFerrari and the Bugatti Veyron 16.4. Triple-digit speed arrives in just 6.2 seconds, and the quarter-mile is conquered in 10.6 seconds at 130 mph. With this car’s 30-to-50- and 50-to-70-mph passing times both under 2.5 seconds, slower vehicles (pretty much everything) aren’t so much passed as simply deleted. Given enough road, the Turbo S cabriolet can punch through the atmosphere all the way up to 205 mph, Porsche says, making it the first and only 911 cabriolet to join the 200-mph club (its maker claimed 197 mph for the previous model).

What’s more, none of this demands advanced driving skills; the pilot needs two working feet and the ability to hold the steering wheel straight—the launch-control system is so easy to use, your grandma could be popping off sub-three-second launches with less than a minute of instruction. For anyone who doesn’t know how Porsche’s brilliant launch control works (or any manufacturer that wants to know how to do launch control right), here’s how easy it is: While stopped with the driving-mode selector in Sport or Sport Plus (S+), mash the brake with your left foot, then floor the throttle with your right. Revs shoot up to a plateau at about 5600 rpm, and when you’re ready, simply release the brake and hold on.

Interestingly, to sustain the car’s rocketlike off-the-line thrust into the triple digits, Porsche advised that we try switching from Sport+ to Sport after clearing second gear, thus retracting the front and rear spoilers and cutting drag. We tried it both ways and found that, indeed, the tactic improved the zero-to-170-mph time by about half a second, to 21.5 seconds.

It Can Turn, Too

As remarkable as the straight-line grip is, the collaborative efforts of the active suspension, torque vectoring, rear-wheel steering, and 245/35 front and 305/30 rear Pirelli P Zero tires—all standard fare on any Turbo S— yield gobs of cornering grip and help keep those lacy, center-locking 20-inch wheels rotating in a disciplined manner even at maximum side loads. This car’s heroic 1.01 g of lateral grip falls short of the Turbo S coupe’s 1.06 g performance but bests its predecessor by 0.01 g. Standard rear-wheel steering shrinks the turning circle to less than 35 feet, a remarkable accomplishment for a sports car measuring more than six feet wide at the rear fenders (it’s nearly three inches wider than the standard 2017 911 Carrera). We’ve never complained about steering response in any previous Turbo S, but Porsche repositioned the connection points for the front axle crossmembers to improve it anyway. We have complained about steering feel in the past—the lack thereof, specifically—but with sufficient feedback coming through the Turbo S cabriolet’s wheel, we won’t complain this time.

Another source of past complaints involves the stupendously powerful carbon-ceramic brakes that, like most of the performance-enhancing options offered on the 911 Turbo, come standard on the Turbo S. Here, the PCCB brakes with their sexy yellow clampers earn nothing but praise, yanking this heaviest of all 911s down from 70 mph in an impressive 144 feet—five feet longer than the Turbo S coupe but seven feet shorter than the pre-refresh model, and all the while exhibiting little of the grabbiness that so annoyed prior testers.

Are You in There, 356?

Not only are the 991.2-based Turbo S models the quickest and fastest 911s in history, they’re also the most complicated, the most overtly luxurious, and among the very heaviest. Indeed, while there may be no automobile in history that has been so carefully curated as to draw a clear visual connection to its earliest progenitors as the Porsche 911, beyond the obvious cues—round headlamps, rear-mounted boxer engine configuration, sloping rear deck, hilariously small rear seats—the Turbo S cabriolet has little in common with the Erwin Komenda–designed Porsche 356 that started the 911 bloodline almost 70 years ago. At the same time, that visual consistency translates into relative ubiquity, making it hard for any 911, even a topless $200K-plus Turbo S like this, to turn heads, especially in SoCal, where roughly one-quarter of all 911 Carreras and 911 Turbos imported to the U.S. are sold.

This car felt suitably rich, equipped as it was with Porsche’s optional $1510 Espresso/Cognac “natural” leather, a $2590 front-axle lift system, $840 seat ventilators, $1090 keyless entry/ignition, a $510 ambient-lighting package, and a healthy list of amenities that Porsche actually includes as standard at the Turbo S cabrio’s $201,450 base price. We’d skip the $430 rear footwell illumination and the ridiculous $530 body-colored key fob (with its own leather pouch!), although we would’ve added the $2490 adaptive cruise control—something no $200K car should leave the factory without. Even without it, this 911’s MSRP landed at an eye-watering $208,950. For its part, Porsche claims that most Turbo S cabriolet customers are far more self-indulgent, so yeah, this one’s kinda cheap as far as this model goes.

Yet it’s not just size and equipment that set apart the 356 and the Turbo S cabriolet, it’s how they seduce their drivers: the 356 through its simple, cheerful design, featherlike weight, hard-working air-cooled engine, and unassisted controls; the 2017 Turbo S with shocking power, computerized wizardry, copious sybaritic delights, and a curvaceous body rife with eye-catching details, most with an aerodynamic story to tell. And while ragtop Porsches of yore made exposure to the elements part of their charm, this car’s thick, multilayer folding roof and wind deflector that motors up from behind the rear seats makes exposure to the elements purely discretionary.

All things considered, the 911 Turbo S cabriolet’s transcendent quality wins the day. Nostalgia simply can’t compete with the warp-speed acceleration, the mind-bending grip, and a giant-slayer narrative. It’s the 911 taken to the maximum. And it has earned our respect.