Some bad news for those who pine for the raucous yowl of a Porsche naturally aspirated flat six as the next generation 911 - all of them, including the track/enthusiast-focused GT3 - will be powered by a turbocharged engine. Not only that, other more sedate variants will have some kind of hybrid assist.
A new report by Autocar seems to confirm the shift toward these newer powertrain technologies, citing a substantial performance increase to cars like the 911 GT3, which will soon benefit from having well over 500hp (373kW) while being more fuel efficient.
The successor to the current-generation Type-991 Porsche 911, tentatively called the 992, will be the first to eschew natural aspiration entirely, though the Zuffenhausen automaker already got the ball rolling by switching all its Carrera models to a turbocharged six-cylinder motor that’s been downsized to 3.0-litres.
Prior to that, we saw the mid-engine Boxster and Cayman switch to a turbocharging while ditching 2 cylinders in the process - they're now driven by either a 2.0-litre or 2.5-litre flat four - of a name change resulting in the contentious somewhat 718 prefix.
The news, at least to those who follow its development, comes with little surprise. It’s an inevitable outcome that’s lamentable but necessary to conform to ever stricter emissions regulations and fuel economy targets.
There is some hope, though, as Porsche has dealt with a number of these transitions as a new generation is introduced and has, so far, been able to emerge from it with an overall stronger all-round car. In the 1990s, it introduced automatic transmission and all-wheel drive in the 964, ditched air-cooled engines for water-cooling in the 996, and moved away from the feelsome hydraulically-assisted power steering for the more efficient electrically-assisted rack in the 991.
Perhaps we’ll look back upon this transition toward an all-turbo (and some hybrid) 911 range with nostalgia, wondering why we were apprehensive to such pivotal shift in the car’s evolution for the better.
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