DivineE
New member
Picked up my new car yesterday from Carlisle and had a good opportunity to get acquainted with her on the 390miles back to Plymouth. I set myself a bit of a top gear challenge and managed to successfully do the trip on one tank of Petrol (averaging just over 30mpg). I'm amazed really because I made good progress, gave it a few blats to the red line in various gears to ensure everything was working correctly and my cruising speed only dropped in the last 50miles as I started to really worry about not making it.
The car surprised me a bit. I've owned a fair selection of sports cars (TVR Cerbera 4.2, Z4MC, various M3's and a couple of very serious 944 turbos one of which I still own) so I had a pre conceived idea about what the car might be like. From the reviews I imagined it would be a bit like a Mk5 Golf R32 with two turbos bolted on. It was a car I loved very much in my ownership and capable of immense cross country pace but you always had the feeling you were along for the ride and the car was doing all the work.
The 996tt feels nothing like that? It's a different animal to the GT3 entirely but through the comfy seats and lighter steering you can still feel its the same chassis. I've only used a tiny percentage of the cars abilities so far but the way it reacts to bumps, dives into corners under braking and changes direction.. all the parts which make up the drivers perception of a cars character can only be likened to my experiences in a 996 GT3 RS as a passenger at Silverstone.
The sound also. Having never heard a 996tt on boost or been out in one before I expected the sort of silent but deadly experience of the 997 turbo. Now I'm not SURE here whether my car has a completely standard exhaust but it idles with a deep bass note and emits 'wup wooping' sounds like muffled barks as you manoeuvre around at low speeds its far more vocal than a 997. You can really hear the roar of the flat 6 and the furious, angry rushing of air as the revs wind up.
Then of course last but not least there's the power. The first time I experienced it was overtaking in third from about 4000rpm. After you depress the throttle, that moment of lag as the speed builds (which still felt about as quick as a 1.8t golf gti on full song) was just enough time for me to think 'is that it' before the turbos kicked in and my head hit the headrest. Embarrassingly it spat once off the limiter as I changed gear but the car who had just pulled in to let me pass was so shocked by the ferocity with which I blew past, that they flashed their lights at me in disgust! I know it was ice cold and dry last night PERFECT conditions but it's shockingly hard to believe that this car has 'only' 420bhp. It certainly doesn't waste them. If it wasn't for the boost gauge telling me otherwise I'd have said the car was chipped for sure.
A factory standard car, providing this kind of performance for 10 years and yet still managing to look, smell and feel like it left the factory this morning is one AWESOME piece of engineering!
The car surprised me a bit. I've owned a fair selection of sports cars (TVR Cerbera 4.2, Z4MC, various M3's and a couple of very serious 944 turbos one of which I still own) so I had a pre conceived idea about what the car might be like. From the reviews I imagined it would be a bit like a Mk5 Golf R32 with two turbos bolted on. It was a car I loved very much in my ownership and capable of immense cross country pace but you always had the feeling you were along for the ride and the car was doing all the work.
The 996tt feels nothing like that? It's a different animal to the GT3 entirely but through the comfy seats and lighter steering you can still feel its the same chassis. I've only used a tiny percentage of the cars abilities so far but the way it reacts to bumps, dives into corners under braking and changes direction.. all the parts which make up the drivers perception of a cars character can only be likened to my experiences in a 996 GT3 RS as a passenger at Silverstone.
The sound also. Having never heard a 996tt on boost or been out in one before I expected the sort of silent but deadly experience of the 997 turbo. Now I'm not SURE here whether my car has a completely standard exhaust but it idles with a deep bass note and emits 'wup wooping' sounds like muffled barks as you manoeuvre around at low speeds its far more vocal than a 997. You can really hear the roar of the flat 6 and the furious, angry rushing of air as the revs wind up.
Then of course last but not least there's the power. The first time I experienced it was overtaking in third from about 4000rpm. After you depress the throttle, that moment of lag as the speed builds (which still felt about as quick as a 1.8t golf gti on full song) was just enough time for me to think 'is that it' before the turbos kicked in and my head hit the headrest. Embarrassingly it spat once off the limiter as I changed gear but the car who had just pulled in to let me pass was so shocked by the ferocity with which I blew past, that they flashed their lights at me in disgust! I know it was ice cold and dry last night PERFECT conditions but it's shockingly hard to believe that this car has 'only' 420bhp. It certainly doesn't waste them. If it wasn't for the boost gauge telling me otherwise I'd have said the car was chipped for sure.
A factory standard car, providing this kind of performance for 10 years and yet still managing to look, smell and feel like it left the factory this morning is one AWESOME piece of engineering!
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