Every time a new 911 hits the market, it manages to divide the auto fraternity into two, one who cannot be bothered and the other that spends the night after the launch trying to study by how much Porsche has tweaked the gear ratio and what effect that could possibly have on the oil temperatures while running. The common term for latter is fanatics, the kind that no one but other fanatics understand, and I, unfortunately, count myself as one of those. So when the Type 992 Porsche 911 came out, it was only natural that I try and put it side by side with the outgoing Type 991 Porsche 911 and as it turns out, I happened to know one such person who shares the exact same fanaticism for the 911 if not one-ups it. Enter Ashwin Mahendran, the person who has largely been responsible for feeding that 911 bug in me and also happens to drive a stunning Guards Red Type 991 Porsche 911 Carrera S. Porsche Centre Bengaluru threw us the keys to their Type 992 Porsche 911 Carrera S and it was only logical to put the car alongside Ashwin’s 991 911. Both Guards Red, both Carrera S variants and both the Mark I of their generations. With Sidram98 behind the lens, it was gonna be one hell of a Friday morning.

The day began at the petrolhead’s hour, at 6 am, bolting down the town to the Porsche showroom to pick up the 992 before reaching the meeting point. The plan was simple, to take the two cars through the leafy lanes in the city for a few images before the traffic breaks out, all while playing spot the differences. First step into the 992 and it feels new yet so familiar. The layout is the same with a large dose of modernity. The screen has grown, the physical buttons have made way for tactile touch screen while retaining the existing layout and the centre console now comes with a Braun shaver for some reason. The good ol’ analogue five dial layout has made its way for a modern digital screen arranged in the same layout as the analogue dials. While the touchscreen is super easy and intuitive, I miss the buttons which felt so much more natural. The over-engineered cup holders that gracefully swing out of the dash in the 991 deserve a mention here, which have been replaced with a boring pit in the centre console on the 992. But with the car world evolving so quickly, it only makes sense for Porsche to keep up. The 992 has grown a fair bit in terms of size too. As Porsche mentioned during its launch, the car now comes only in the ‘wide’ body format as against the 991’s three different sizes. More on that later. While it has grown in size, the interior remains as roomy as it always was and is comfortable enough to be daily driven without a flinch. The ride in comfort mode is, well, comfortable and that growl is a joy to hear even in the least sporty setting. The torque from the forced induction motor makes it an entertaining car from the get-go without having to cane the engine for a good time.

Cut to the meeting point, a few quick snaps and I jumped into the 991. Right off the first wheel turn, the 991 already feels much more pared back. The 991 itself was considered plush as against the 997 which it replaced, and with the 992, Porsche is only trying to cast a wider net. Now it has been a trend in the supercar sector lately to make cars as versatile and ‘do it all’ as possible and the 992 wasn’t spared. In the 991, you can feel the vibrations from the engine and the gearbox crawl through the chassis and slap you on your bum, and this is the most ‘basic’ car in the lineup being so visceral. In comparison, the 992 feels more like a luxe sedan, cocooning the occupants from everything, making it a much better car to munch miles in. A little stretch on the open roads and one realises how much turbochargers have messed with the engine noises. While the 992 sounds bassy, the 991 simply sings! There is absolutely no substitute for that sonorous NA flat six that powered the 991. Last of its kind, this particular example is kept fanatically stock by its owner. The car was specified with the optional Porsche Sports Exhaust and even in the most meek setting, it sounds phenomenal. 

A little blast through the morning rays, we pulled over to park the cars. When a two Porsche fanatics get together, it is inevitable that they’d spend hours around the car going through each detail with an imaginary fine-toothed comb and it was no different here. The 992 pays homage to the older 911s by incorporating some iconic design cues from the yesteryear legends. Upfront, one can see shades of the 959 in the way the headlamps sit on the body work and the bonnet which harks back to the 930 turbo. These details are what we live for! Off the cuff, the 992 already looks much larger than the 991 and in a bid to make the car more usable, Porsche seems to have raised the nose of the car, which is only a boon on our clobbered roads. However, looking at the numbers, the 992 appears to be much larger than it actually is. 28mm on the length and 45mm on its width, the car manages to look much larger thanks to the big bulbous curves on it. The most glaring change on the 992 comes on the rear, the car is wider than the 991 and as it was stated at the launch, the car grew horizontally as Porsche did away with the varied body sizes that came on the 991. All to accommodate the new mechanicals and also make the car hybrid tech ready. The word hybrid and 911 don’t go well together, much like putting Kanye and Taylor in the same room, for the 911 has been ‘the’ driver’s car since the beginning of time. But the depressing part for later, for now, the 911 remains strictly ICE, thankfully.

Keeping aside facts and figures, the 992 nails its design brief. Want a car to drive to work, finish a track session and buy the groceries for the missus on the way back? Step this way! It’s been fettled and massaged to appeal to an even wider demographic with even more tech to prevent you from becoming a part of the landscape. And rightly so. The Carrera S gets 530 Nm of torque, remember you buy horsepower but you drive torque. The last time you wanted to be in this zip code of twist you had to buy something with ’t u r b o’ stuck on its back. For a Carrera to have this much muscle is unprecedented. 

The 992 today stands with its immediate predecessor, the 991. The last of the… well, you already know. The 991 is a car that is decidedly docile even below 4000 rpm as there are no snails doing some spells to push you back into your seat. It’s comparable to any dual-clutch commuter, so docile is its demeanour you wonder what on earth have these Porsche knobs been on about. You hit an open stretch and squeeze past 4000rpm to its redline and you soon understand what multiple personality disorder means. This unpretentious commuter assaults the horizon with gusto you wouldn’t have realised and a when you don’t let off the throttle in a straight line you’re eventually aware that no matter what neutering every gen goes through, the physics of it is, the mass is in the ass. So your nose gets lighter and the adrenaline is flooding. A corner shows up, blip down the PDK and you appreciate googling trail braking before getting in. That's quite a bit of driving high from this trumped-up Beetle! Wider track up front keeping it sure-footed despite the light nose.  The PDK isn’t as quick as the 992, but with Sports Plus it gives you the kick of a single clutch for fun, which is a nice emotive connect when you need it. Turn it off for a laser-precise G-force free tone change in its normal & sport modes. The ideal combo for pace? Sport setting for engine and gearbox, the suspension on firm. Clearly quite a bit of Jekyll & Hyde going on. Cliche done, moving on. The cabin is Porsche business as usual. Safe, not trendy but fashionable in a way that it ages gracefully. The leap up from the 997 is palpable even to non-car folk in terms of haptic quality and durability. The Panamera-ish ski slope of buttons has divided opinion but once you’re used to it everything falls to hand naturally. 

Coming to the 992. It’s the squat, thick-set successor to the dainty 997 and 991 Carrera. It's inherited the multiple personality disorder too, you can make a quiet and torque filled wafty pace with your phone paired and your caller on the system, in a 444 hp car. Incidentally, that’s the 997.2 GT3RS hp figure, talk about the pace of progress! Punch the throttle and it stays faithfully linear and doesn’t slug you the guts like those turbo 911s. This is more a torque fill for a linear experience than an air sickness inducer. It’s stupidly grin-largeningly quick, and it is ready to play at the slightest flex of your right foot. No need to wait, think about your gear, see a gap and its closed. Steering feel deserves a note, it’s back to its weighty communicable tactile self compared to the very un-Porsche like darty wheel of 991. What it doesn’t inherit is the howl. You have a deep-chested growl that reminds you you’re in something not slow but the sense of speed doesn’t reach you via your ears. Turbo spooling exists but it's not of the boat floating variety. No turbo lag worth noting however if your other car has an Italian prancing horse on its nose instead of this demure German one and is named 244 multiplied by 2, you will notice a slight lag. The other inheritance it’s been written out of is the CRISP throttle response which is to be expected. It revs up amazingly quick for a turbo but the telepathic tacho is now reserved for the atmospheric GT cars. These are not shortcomings but rather its newfound character. Every generation has a quirk unique to them. 

Looking around the cabin, you know you’ve spent a lot of money but you also know that the 991 was the last car signed off by Porsche before its VW merger. Everything in here is laid out flawlessly. Screens clear and intuitive, buttons for what you need, discreet screens for what you don’t. You also know its a VW because they trim the fat in places you wouldn’t normally see. A lot of clever tech going on, little mics in the wheel well to know when it’s wet out and suggest suitable traction action. Mildly insulting because it’s not the like the driver won’t know its bloody raining outside when he’s at the wheel. The nannies have gotten smarter so that 18th birthday presents can last longer but thankfully they can be tuned to suit one's personal preference. 

What stays the same? The sure-footed grip off the line, the playful balance of a rear-engined car, the quality of Stuttgart’s finest engineering prowess and the fact that what you drive is a proud piece of heritage, dating back unchanged in name nodding to race victories in the 1950s. Along with the ethos of a stark dual personality. It’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it? 

So how good is the 992? Well, to answer that in a line, it is as good as a 911 ever was. Same old failsafe formula, same engine-in-the-ass layout, same DNA in a modern skin to keep up with the quick-changing times. But speaking from a purist’s perspective, the 991 is truly the car to have. Hear us out. As blistering quick yet usable the 992 is, what a driving enthusiast seeks for is something very simple — goosebumps. Goosebumps the minute you see the car, step in it, at the first turn of the wheel and all while you drive it. And that is exactly where the 991 nudges ahead of the 992 with its old school, raw feel. The 991 is something that will appeal to the Sunday morning sprinter while the 992 is something you can drive through the week. The 992 feels a lot more neutered, which isn’t exactly a bad thing because most with bags of cash to spend on a car would want something that is fast and comfortable, and that the 992 does with some exceptional flair. It can do your office runs and lap up the track without breaking a sweat and it will make you feel like a seasoned F1 driver while at it, and that’s what 911s have always done, inspired confidence to push the car further. With the 992, Porsche has only dialled it up an 11 with the revised PDK and more horses and this is one car that will satiate a variety of driving bugs. Be it a city commute, a grocery run, a pleasure run or a spirited dash around the racetrack, the car will do it all for you with surgical precision. In short, with the 992, Porsche is aiming at making the Carrera a proper supercar while the 991 remained #OnlyASportscar, in Porsche’s own words. 

The 992 has the worst job in the world. It’s up against the fussiest, most pedantic geeks who obsess over details with a vernier callipers and bicker over alphabets and numbers that non-Porsche fanatics scoff at and promptly add “get a life”. But its geared for the battle, ready to square off with anything from the back catalogue while wearing a chiselled face reminiscent of its 993 forefather. It’s way faster, a bit larger than the previous generation but a whole dining table bigger than when things began. Obesity is real people!

But yet the 991 is the experience that the heart craves for, despite a few flaws. The engine noise, the vibrations and the mechanical nature of the car make you feel that much more connected to it. But then again, as it is with every other Porsche fanatic, it is always the older car that seems better for some reason. The 991 over the 992, the 997 over the 991 and a Singer 911 over every damn car that exists in the macrocosm. Why is that? Well, that’s something no one knows. As I said in the beginning, only a handful understand why. 

Note :: Can't go without thanking Porsche Centre Bengaluru for helping us put this together and Ashwin Mahendran for showing up at an ungodly hour and his inputs on this piece!