No names, but some car journalists have a term they like to use whenever a hi-mpg, lo-smog car is launched. They call it a 'Guardian reader's car'. The same journalists are baffled when I tell them I test petrol-drinking cars for said paper - after all, the readership just ride bikes and swerve to avoid worms, do they not? The worm-swerving I accept (and even admit to practising), but the Guardian's marketing ferrets will quickly point out that an unusually high proportion of this broadsheet's readers spends big money on cars - at least more so than among the nation's aristos, many of whom run 1957 Bentleys and use the Telegraph's motoring supplement as a cheap alternative to central heating.
If this seems mildly defensive, it's because it's not every week that we test drive Porsche's latest hardware. But for all those hundreds of readers who are thinking of buying the new 911 Carrera 4, I can report that their conscience is safe. It might not look like it, but this is, on the quiet, a bit of a Guardian reader's car.
A smattering of history and geometry will aid your appreciation. First of all, it's important to remember that the 911 badge goes back to 1963 and the distinctive rear-engine, rear-drive mould, still further, to 1948. As debts to heritage go, this means that the new Carrera has lots of automotive baggage to pack in. Its history is also that of a crab - not because it likes to go sideways (which can happen) but because every time it sheds its old shell, it emerges a bit bigger - and a bit more powerful. So the current car has 300 brake horsepower, goes from zero to sixty in less than five-and-a-half seconds and has a top speed of 163mph. Or did, until this new four-wheel drive model came along. It is a shade faster still and will see you happily to 174mph. Which is where the geometry comes in. Just to save your postage, we'll state here that no car can be very powerful AND very safe, but the all-wheel drive 911 does go some way towards curbing the car's inherent instability. Driving a normal Carrera round a very bendy corner is best likened to attempting to throw a lump hammer handle-first; because the engine and drive are all pushing like hell from the boot, the front can, in over-enthusiastic hands, suddenly become the back. Whereupon relaxed and pleasant motoring, possibly along with you, go out of the window.
Not so the Carrera 4. In truth, it's a cheat's 911. Within its innards, a viscous coupling system monitors progress. If needs be, it can transfer up to 40 per cent of the torque to the front wheels. On top of that, a button marked PSM (Porsche stability management) invokes technology recently banned in Grand Prix racing. If the system senses serious slide from one wheel, it brakes it individually, bringing the entire car back into line. Behind this artillery, there's also ABS, ASR (anti-spin differential) and ABD, (automatic brake differential). For technical authority, no car has so many letters after its name.
On the road and in the hands of a wet-eared novice like me, this means that progress is very stable and solid, even when the inevitable temptation of overtaking a limping milkfloat becomes too much. It's not all fun though. Most drivers, it must be said, dislike Porsche owners. So in heavy traffic, no one wants to let you in, or out. And while a new Ford might elicit admiring glances, a T-reg Porsche assumes a strange invisible quality. Still, it's no price to pay for the pleasure of temporary, free, ownership.
The latest 911 is noisy at speed, grates your buttocks through potholes and, in manual, has a gear and clutch change so heavy that the left side of your body begins to resemble Popeye. But on an open road, it shrinks round you like a Kawasaki, does exactly what you ask and makes you feel spoilt rotten. Should Guardian readers buy it? Those with £67,850 to spare will find no better precision instrument for the road. And if their conscience weighs heavily, they might like to remember What Car? magazine's most recent emissions test to find 'Britain's Filthiest Cars'. The 911 came out squeaky green, sharing a ranking with Toyota's 1.6-litre Corolla. Which means that despite the near-sexual frisson, it's all good clean fun.
