Silver 996 Porsche C4S
Last weekend I found myself sitting in a 2002 Silver Porsche Carrera C4S. This is the 996 Carrera widebody rear engine four wheel drive Porsche that has been popular for many years. It was a cool evening in Denver when my brother and I headed down to the local Porsche dealer to do the drive. This particular car had about 20,000 miles on it and the paint was in beautiful condition. The dealer shuffled a few cars out of the way while we got in - my brother in the driver’s seat initially, while I sat in the passenger seat. To be honest I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had never ridden in a Porsche 911 before, let alone driven one. I had read review after review of them though, and the 911 Carrera has always been one of the most highly regarded sports cars out there. To be honest, I don’t think any of those people who reviewed the 911 had driven a C4S. A turn of the key, and the engine roared to life. We were in their covered parking area, so the sound of the sport exhaused filled the room with a very attractive metallic growl. We slowly rolled the car out of the garage and puttered out to the main drag. The engine was cool, so as we pulled into traffic, my brother didn’t accelerate too hard. At low speeds the car felt just about like any other car. He continued to drive slowly for the first 10 minutes or so before cracking the throttle open.
Interior: The Porsche C4S was certainly appointed nicely. Like any German car, the soft leather adorned interior featured subtle stitching and a very solid feel. The doors made a nice heavy “thump” when you closed them, the handles were made of aluminum, and the switches were all solid plastic. The shifter felt a little odd in my hand, but was definitely solid and obviously of high quality craftsmanship, while the Bose sound system pumped the tunes out with a great sound. Of course, the orchestral exhaust note was much more pleasing to the ear, so the stereo was quickly turned off. The leather-wrapped steering wheel felt nice in the hand, but was noticeably more skinny than the steering wheel of my M3. Still vastly better than the average Dodge Caravan though. The dashboard display was fantastically put together. Consistent with Porsche Tradition was the tachometer directly in the center, and the largest dial on the dash by a considerable margin. White numbers counted up to 7,000 RPM where the redline kicked in. The Speedometer clocked up to a healthy 200 mph, which is always fun to see on a Speedo and made me feel a little jealous that the speedometer in my M3 only showed a “180 mph.” You sit down very low in a Porsche Carrera. Even compared to my M3 it felt low, with the dash seeming to loom almost above your head - but visibility was still very very good. All the switches and knobs in the Porshe C4S were in the right places. The seats were adequate, but they weren’t the sports seats, and had about as much support as your typical 3 series BMW or C class Mercedes. Hard corning in this car definitely sent you sliding around.
Steering & Feel: It’s hard to deny that the steering wasn’t sublime in the Silver 911. But would I say it is significantly better than in my M3? No. Better than the steering in my dad’s 330ix? Yes. I noticed immediately that, although the soft leather and curves of the Porsche steering wheel were incredibly comfortable in my hand, I did not get nearly as much road sensation communicated to me as I would have expected from a car that had been hailed to be such a masterpiece for longer than I’ve been alive. The other really irritating thing about this car was the fact that the clutch was completely numb - and I mean absolutely totally numb. There was zero feedback to my foot through my driving shoes that the gear was engaged or disengaged. So bad was it, that when I did a hard launch off the line, I made the clutch smell like someone left a rubber boot in the oven while the Thanksgiving turkey was cooking. The shifter was also incredibly numb. The shifting motion was incredibly silky smooth - and made the shift action on my M3 feel very notchy - but you couldn’t feel when the gear had actually been engaged without using almost full concentration. Between that and the numb clutch, I felt like Ray Charles trying to drive an 18 wheeler.
Performance: To be fair, we didn’t have a super twisty mountain road to take the Porsche onto. In fact, we only turned right the entire time because we were a bit short on time and could only do a large square circuit. Thankfully there were a couple of sweeping right corners to take at a nice speed. Once the engine got up and running, my brother did some hard accelerations and corners - but hard to get a sense for how quick it feels as a passenger. After a lap that was about 2 or 3 miles long it was my turn to take over the wheel. He pulled into a quiet side street and we swapped chairs. This is of course when I first noticed how freakin numb the clutch and gearbox were. I pulled the car out to the main drag and pulled into traffic. Immediately I noticed a lack of potency, but I was still just getting used to the car and how it felt, and thought maybe I just hadn’t pushed the car very hard. I came to a stop at a light and prepped myself for a decent launch. Wasn’t looking to smoke the tires or anything, but wanted to get a good launch in. I revved the engine to about 2k RPM and let the clutch out. With about as much excitement as my wife’s 4 cyclinder Honda Accord, the Porsche crept off the line. “Okay,” I thought,”I’ll give it a bit more gas.” So I depressed the gas pedal further and further as the tach climbed to 7,000 RPM, shifted to second, and then hit the gas again. I noticed I was really having a hard time pulling away from traffic - so I hit the throttle even harder. Only to realize the gas pedal was already pegged. The Carrera 4S was pulling about as hard as my M3 in 4th gear. Okay, so it’s not the most exciting engine. I thought the beautiful chassis and wonderful steering would save the day. As I approached the upcoming righthand corner, I applied the brake, which felt incredibly weak and cold. Now almost in a panic, I mashed the brake to slow the car before heading into the corner. I now had slowed down too much and was at the bottom of the RPM band in 2nd gear. Used to the low end grunt of my M3, I mashed the gas pedal down and the masterful Porsche 911 anemically groaned its way through the corner. About 50 yards after the corner exit, the 6 cylinder engine finally found its guts and accelerated reasonably hard from 5k to 7k RPM, before I hit 3rd gear and again found myself pining for any kind of acceleration. It was at that point that I turned to my brother and asked
“Is there a sport button in this thing that I’m missing?”
Which pretty much summed up my experience in the 2002 Porsche Carrera 4S.
M3 Addict Test Drives Carrera, Porsche, test drive
