Wave Goodbye!

Life begins at 3000 rpm. At more modest revs, lumping through traffic with the rest of the proles, your Porsche Turbo Carrera behaves like any one of a million ordinary automobiles; but once that threshold of 3000 revolutions per minute is reached, hang on and pay attention. Suddenly, with a (text continued on page 90) turbinelike surge and whine, the Turbo Carrera transforms itself from a docile, friendly puppy into a growling, fuming greyhound packed with enough power to blow all but a handful of the fastest cars on earth clean into the weeds. Here is this regular Porsche coupe---the same rather bulbous, broad-beamed little body that the legendary Stuttgart auto manufacturer has been producing in quantity for over a decade---with the power and speed to make a new Corvette seem like a Checker cab by comparison. Yes, America's sacred sports car, its teeth admittedly filed smooth by a variety of Government regulations, is still perceived as a fast car by most citizens; but against a Turbo Carrera, it is a doddering stumblebum---as these performance figures attest:

This brand of performance qualifies the Turbo Carrera as the fastest automobile presently available on the American market. A few cars, the Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer, the Lamborghini Countach, etc., are capable of higher top speeds, but they are not being imported into the United States. Besides, they are really expensive---somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000---whereas the Turbo can be yours for a modest $26,000 (minus sun roof). Good Lord!---$26,000 for a steamed-up version of the Porsche 911 that arrived on the market in 1964, costing $6500. Of course, we've got the re-evaluation of the dollar and the Deutsche mark, rampaging inflation, etc., to account for part of the cost differential, but to non-Porsche freaks, the Turbo price sounds outrageous---which is a correct response. It is outrageous unless you happen to be lusting after the fastest production Porsche ever built and an automobile destined for the legendary status that surrounds such machines as the Type 59 Bugatti, the 1750 Alfa Romeo, the SJ Duesenberg and the 300 SL Gullwing Mercedes-Benz.

After several thousand miles behind the wheel of a Turbo, including a couple of wonderful blasts up and down the East Coast between Miami and New York, I can attest to the car's electric personality. Decked out with radar detector and C. B. radio (handle: Pressure Cooker) as countermeasures against the Smokeys, the Turbo was able to be operated much nearer its potential than one might otherwise expect in the land of the halt, the lame and the 55-mph speed limit. And that potential is incredible. It is also deceiving. Thanks to the peculiar capabilities of the turbocharger, the automobile starts, idles and scuffles around at low speeds with the tame affability of its distant cousin, the Volkswagen Beetle, getting 19-20 miles per gallon of high-test gasoline along the way. Unlike those of most powerful cars, the Turbo engine needs no radical camshafts, high-compression pistons or hot ignition systems, which eliminates the lumpy idling, plug fouling and over-heating that are endemic with such machinery.

The car is silent at all speeds, thanks to its smooth engine and the substantial insulation in its bodywork that isolates road noises. The quiet, coupled with the superb seats and the car's ability to track along as if it were on rails, permits one to gobble up miles without effort. But there are problems, relating primarily to the Turbo's inability to go slowly. Once on the interstate, even quasi-legal speeds like 65 mph seem absurdly slow, and one cannot hold the machine at anything much under 80 mph. In fact, the car is so stable in normal, straight-line situations that 85 mph becomes a nearly mandatory cruising speed---which, of course, can get you into a heap of trouble unless rapt attention is paid to the operations of the highway patrol in the area. This is complicated by the fact that the Turbo is about as inconspicuous as Elton John in Brooks Brothers, which causes heads to swivel wherever the car appears. There is something insidiously spectacular about the Turbo Carrera. At first glance, one is inclined to dismiss it as just another 911 coupe, but then the visual clues begin to dent the brain: the fat radial tires surrounded by the wide, lowered bodywork, complete with bold fender flares and a wonderful "whale tail" spoiler on the rear deck that houses the air-conditioning condenser and gives the machine an incongruously defiant look---like a midget in a storm trooper's uniform. All of this---the high-speed cruising and the spectacular styling---should be enough to ensure complete censure by the puritans and their surrogates who patrol the roads, but there is more. There is the Turbo.

Like those poor dolts in the television commercial who can't resist squeezing the toilet paper, a Turbo driver can't spend more than ten consecutive minutes behind the wheel without punching the throttle. With this simple movement comes a magnificent transformation, a Götterdämmerung of power that turns the car from a pleasant, nimble sports machine into a baby rocket sled. This takes place in any of the four gears, once the aforementioned threshold of 3000 rpm is crossed---even in fourth, where mashing the throttle at 90 mph will propel you to 140 mph in eight of the most thrilling seconds imaginable. This I did on repeated occasions during my Florida treks, and each time it was the same: that wonderful thrust of g forces in the small of the back, that delightful little whine from the Turbo and the eye-popping sight of the speedometer needle winding into the triple numbers like a runaway second hand.

Because speed comes so easily to a Turbo, certain caution is advised. It is, after all, still a Porsche, which means that its engine is hung off the back of the chassis like a steamer trunk. Porsches are famous for their nasty oversteering habits, and the Turbo will do nothing to diminish that reputation. With most of the weight hung out behind, the car wants to swap ends when really hard throttle applications and slippery surfaces are combined, and it is not as stable as a Ferrari or a Maserati at 150-plus velocities. In fact, it is quite twitchy at such heady speeds, especially in cross winds, which underlines the hard fact that the Turbo Carrera is an expert's automobile and should not be driven at the limit by the untrained. "Frankly, I'm worried that some of these cars are going to get into the hands of flakes and we're going to hurt some people," says one of the nation's largest Porsche dealers.

Of course, one could lay down his 26 grand and not take his Turbo out of the city, thereby never exposing himself to the temptations of really high speed. This is an alternative, because the Turbo is the ultimate urban-guerrilla car---so quick and nimble in the Stoplight Grand Prix circuit that you can blow away all your competitors---zooming through traffic with an alacrity the uninitiated refuse to accept. Yet limiting oneself with such a complete car would be silly. The Turbo does everything well, gaining superb marks in braking, handling, acceleration, comfort, fabrication, etc., which places its owner under a certain obligation to drive it well and use its vast capabilities properly.

The Turbo is something special, even in the lofty and arcane world of exotic cars. Its closest relative, the 911 Carrera, carries the same overhead-camshaft, flat-six, air-cooled engine, with a slightly smaller displacement (2.7 liters vs. 3 liters), produces 77 fewer horsepower (157 vs. 234) and costs about $10,000 less. The essential difference is a collection of plumbing on the engine known as a turbocharger, a device that has long been accepted as the simplest---if not the cheapest---way to boost an engine's horsepower. The turbo-charger is a relative of the supercharger, (continued on page 180) Wave Goodbye! (continued from page 90) which has been widely used on reciprocating engines since the Twenties. Both are basically pumps that force the air/fuel mixture into the combustion chambers under high pressure, thereby increasing the density of the fuel charge. The more fuel in the combustion chambers, the bigger the explosions, which results in more horsepower. Normal engines must rely on only atmospheric pressure to push the air/fuel mixture into the combustion chambers, as opposed to turbocharging and supercharging, which can produce any desired pressure (called boost) within the limits of reliability, fuel economy and cost. The results can be dazzling, especially on racing engines. The Drake-Offenhauser engines that dominate Indianapolis-type racing have used turbochargers since the late Sixties. Without the boost from their turbos, the engines develop about 180 hp; with the turbos at full boost, power increases to over 900 hp. The incredible Porsche 917/10 sports racing car that the late Mark Donohue drove to the Can-Am championship in 1973 used a twin-turbocharged engine that developed over 1200 hp on pump gasoline. In fact, it was the technology learned from that flat-12-cylinder racing engine that led Porsche to create the Turbo Carrera for the open road, albeit considerably detuned and less elaborate in both design and output. But the concept was the same---a turbocharger to increase horsepower, driven by the pressure of the engine's exhaust gases. And therein lies the essential difference between turbochargers and superchargers: The latter is driven by belts or gears from the engine's crankshaft, while the former uses the essentially free energy being dispensed in the form of exhaust. Imagine this small turbine, spinning at high speed (in the case of the Turbo, at 90,000 rpm) under pressure from the exhaust and thrusting the air/fuel mixture into the combustion chambers. Even when the boost is quite modest, as in the case of the Porsche, the horsepower increase can be prodigious. An added bonus to turbocharging is the cleanliness of the exhaust; because the combustion is so complete, emissions are low, which eliminates the need for catalytic mufflers.

If the turbos are such a direct avenue to clean and powerful engines, why are they not being used more extensively? One need only gaze at the Turbo Carrera's price tag for the answer. In the present state of technology, reliable, economical turbocharging is bloody expensive. While add-on turbocharger kits are now available for most production cars for under $1000, the sad fact is that most passenger-car engines do not have the beefy bearings, valves, cylinder heads and crankshafts to withstand the excessive internal pressure developed by turbos. Much of the extra $10,000 cost of the Turbo Carrera lies in engineering and production techniques necessary to make the engine strong, reliable and economical under the added stress and strain. There is no question that other manufacturers are turning toward turbo-charging, and we may see the day when turbos come into widespread, relatively cheap use; but they will probably remain on expensive machines like the Porsche for the next few years, at least (although the use of a turbocharged V6 Buick Century pace car at Indianapolis this year may mean an acceleration in the time frame).

All right, then, the Porsche Turbo costs ten grand more for an extra 77 hp, which works out to about $130 per hp. Of course, that's not all you get; the Turbo is hardly stark. In fact, it's the most sumptuous Porsche ever built, loaded with gadgets that range from a superior AM/FM stereo system to air conditioning, to power windows, to the most lavishly complicated, power-operated, heated side mirror imaginable. The interior is coated with soft, aromatic leather and lush carpeting. Everywhere there is evidence of magnificent craftsmanship. Moreover, the Turbo is equipped with special body and chassis components, including a rear-deck spoiler and flared fenders to accommodate the wider wheels and fatter radial tires. More subtle but equally important changes have been made on the suspension, including numerous bits that have been fabricated out of cast aluminum rather than the customary stamped steel. The Turbo Carrera is truly the ultimate 911, the final statement concerning a long and honorable Porsche tradition built around rear-engine, air-cooled, high-performance sports and GT cars.

OK, but who is going to unload $26,000 for a 165-mph supercar in these days of economic hazard and 55-mph speed limits? That is a question that vexed officials of the Porsche-Audi Division of Volkswagen of America (Porsche is part of the giant German automotive conglomerate controlled by VW) when the car was announced. In the face of a shaky economy and voracious highway patrols, would anybody be willing to shell out such a substantial amount of money for a car so seemingly ill suited to the domestic driving environment?

America is the most important Porsche market in the world, accounting for 50 percent of all sales (half of them in California). Moreover, there exists a semicrazed coterie of Porsche aficionados (the Porsche Club of America, with 85 chapters and 19,000 members) and it was their fanatic loyalty to the marque that induced the company to timorously import 300 of the Turbos during 1976. The response has been staggering. "We have increased our import quota to 500 Turbos and demand is so strong that anybody wanting a car will have to wait for the '77s," says a rather dazed Porsche official.

The Turbo arrives at a time when the Porsche image is changing, with the presentation of its front-engine, four-cylinder, water-cooled 924---a stepson that was originally designed as an Audi GT car but labeled a Porsche at the last minute. What's more, a V8, front-engine 928 is on the horizon, giving rise to the rumor that the Turbo is the final expression of the traditional Porsche design and the end of the wonderful 911 series. But that is not so, claim company officials. The 911 will be produced as long as a market exists, which implies at least five more years, perhaps longer. After all, another Porsche design, the Volkswagen Beetle, refuses to die after 40 years, so the 911 may be around longer than anyone imagines. Presuming this to be true, we can only puzzle over the success of the Turbo and what new model that will generate. May we suggest a twin-turbocharged version, the first car capable of an honest 200 mph on the open road, priced at $50,000?

The line forms on the right.