Update: Jan 2024
I've had the car a couple years now, and have rebuilt the front suspension entirely as well as had it professionally aligned. I driven 2 seasons of auto-x, 10,000mi of total driving, a couple of winter schools and some car control clinics. Overall I think the below is still pretty accurate. What I think I have learned in the interim is the following:
the car is very sensitive to tire pressures. I really need to keep them pretty close to factory recommended 29/34 to keep the car happy. 34/34 (for example) is twitchy and hard to handle. Not twitchy in a fun way, lets leave it at that.
Tire widths are important (duh) I am auto-xing on a square set of tires - meaning the fronts and rears are the same width. I knew the car would want to dance more, but it is more pronounced than I would have guessed. Not a problem per se, just surprising to the degree with which it happens.
The car is very sensitive to alignment and ride height. Something I would see on the message boards a lot but discounted as confirmation bias to some degree. But with a proper alignment and good bushings & shocks the car is completely transformed in how it goes through corners. When I first bought it I babied it a bit because it felt unsure of itself. Now it sails through corners with confidence and tracks down the highway as if it is on rails.
It has so much traction, even without a LSD, that getting it to slide on purpose even on a wet skidpad is difficult. I have to really do stupid things to get the rear to step out and then jam on the gas to keep it out. At times I confess I was a bit jealous of the M cars and American muscle cars making 2 or 3X the hp I am. ;) Net net my first few times out I spun it, a lot. But that was really me, not the car. Wet is trickier than snowy, at least for me.
Wet skid pad fun, Oct 2023
*** Original article
Like many of us, I read about my favorite sports cars in the pages of the glossy magazines of the day. Road & track, Car And Driver, and later Automobile. When I felt flush or the cover picture was just too much to bare, maybe even Car.
The 911 always got a lot of coverage, especially the turbo. "The Widowmaker" it was sometimes called. Oversteer got a lot of coverage, unrecoverable oversteer, even in the standard models. Scary stuff.
Now that I have a couple of winter driving schools, a few auto-x days (including a 1st and 2nd in class, cough) and a couple of test and tune days behind me I can say with reasonable confidence that the articles really don't do the car justice. I have spoken with nearly 10 different high performance driving instructors along the way while gathering my own (albeit anecdotal) experiences and I thought I would summarize what I've found so far.
In any normal steady state turn, the car understeers. Like any other car. Porsche did this on purpose, of course. You go a bit fast in the turn and it pushes wide to tell you to back off. You back off the gas, which shifts weight on to the fronts and your line tightens up and away you go. No drama. It's pretty intuitive and not surprising.
In a high speed sweeper it will start to drift with a rear bias as speed increases and you can easily catch it with a flick of the wheel. It speaks very clearly and as long as you're listening, you will come out feeling like a natural born driver. A hero. You can see where all of those racing drift videos on youtube come from. The 911 is a dance partner of rare talent.
On a snowy skidpad, the car wants to hang the tail out. Not unlike many other sports cars. And it is fun and controllable up to a point; if you get too silly and let the rear build up too much momentum, you will not be able to catch it. It's just physics. (polar moment of inertia) You have to stay ahead of it, turning in as quickly as you possibly can. That said, even a beginner like me was able to go around and around, hanging it out like a pro, so clear are the cars intentions and so direct are its controls. Several instructors commented about how the 911 will make you a better driver, and I believe them.
So if the car is so inherently good, why the reputation? One very experienced instructor I had commented that they thought a lot of professional types (Stock Brokers, Doctors, Lawyers, etc) had bought these cars as status symbols back in the day and really didn't know how to drive that well. They would overcook it into a turn and understeer. And like most inexperienced drivers, when the car understeers they would come off the gas (shifting weight onto the front tires) and keep adding steering, it's just instinct. Once the car catches, there is way too much steering input and around she goes. And once she starts, well, you are just along for the ride. People being what they are, they blame the car. The reality is a bit trickier.
I was deliberately silly here, testing the limits in the rain by overcooking the corner at the FCP Proving grounds. You can see the rear gets a nice slide going but it is controllable and even an amateur like me can catch it pretty cleanly. It is pure fun.
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