Chris Harris on… the future of the Porsche 911 and internal-combustion | Top Gear

Although i'm starting to have that awful, oh, is it not that bad? I had it this week for the first time. I just saw that dark green one, doing the slides in the snow, and i thought basically, if you keep it in a very, very dark color which hides all the nasty bits. It looks quite good yeah but anyway i'm not going to talk about it. No! No. I want to talk about the 911 um, oh happy, to talk about that yeah, the future of the 911. Is it in doubt um, because so they sold a boatload of thai cans. Last year, 20 000 thai cans, 35, 000 911s, but that's gon na that gap's going to close. Are you sure about that? Well, they were still ramping up. I'Ve heard that i've heard that initial tyco sales were stratospheric yeah, but they tailed off after a bit. So they had a big spike and then it's now on the way, not on the wane, but i think it's leveled off a bit okay, because the early adopters, a lot of people, were waiting for this car. A lot of good porsche customers with cash went i'll have one straight away: yeah and now they've got to try and flog it to the mccann type owners and i'm, not sure it's going to be quite as easy good point. It'S an expensive car. You can't maintain that that that's that 911., so i don't think it's in doubt.

I think the porsche has one of its very best men in charge – frank, vallaso, i'm sure you know he's a bit of a star of the company if they thought the 911 was um on the way in itself. I don't think they'd have put their man of that quality onto the project and let's look into other areas of porsche's activities. It'S just invested heavily in this synthetic fuel company, yes um, and i think that tells you everything you need to know about. The internal combustion in your portions phil still feels there is a future in that technology. Rightly so. The 911, i think, will inevitably have hybridity going forward, but this is what's clever about their model adjustment. Every car company now has to meet an overall average of emissions. If every other car is electric and and we're hearing, it will be so boxster cayman replacement, yeah. Electric mccann electric cayenne electric panamera electric: does there need to be a panamera when you've got a thai, can i'm, not sure it's, slightly bigger isn't it um, but that does leave space for them to build a sports car and i think they will do that. And i i really think the next 10 years of the 911 could be even more exciting. You know i hear rumors about what what is being planned, then it's pretty exciting. Do you think? Because, obviously, in 2030, you can't sell any pure petrol electric cars in the uk.

So when you walk into a porsche dealership in 2035, what what does 911 look like? Will they ever let it go pure electric or do they is it sort of? Does it become this sort of unicorn that's only sold in certain corners of the world with a combustion engine? What what happens then, as a government, if you've made a commitment to banning the sale of internal combustion engine based on the fact that they are net polluters? And then someone comes along with the technology and says we can brew this liquid, that you can put into a car and and actually we can prove that it's cleaner than making an electric car. You probably need to have a second look at the decision. You'Ve made. Do you think, there's time to turn the government's mind off? I don't think i think if a technology emerged that meant that your decision was obsolete, you'd have to look at it again and the way that the world's changing so fast in all areas of our lives. If you'd said to me a year ago, we'd be sitting here now having this conversation after the 12 months we've just had, i wouldn't have believed you yeah, so i think retrospective adjustments to political decisions are allowable and i don't think politicians have to lose face. They just have to say we didn't know that was possible yeah and this synthetic fuel technology is going to be very interesting, very, very interesting.

It does feel like a bit of a lifeline for for petrolheads to continue enjoying these cars that are so that feel quite attached. Yes, it is, but let's be serious it's not just that it's, not just porsche saying we think we've found a bit of kryptonite. You can carry on using it's porsche, saying these car things aren't as evil as you think yeah, and they do help people's lives. And if we can do this, we can solve all of the problems that you have with us. Putting this liquid into a load of reciprocating parts that produce power well, here's a bit of a sort of philosophical tangent, i suppose talking about the 911 in the future. Have we not already reached peak combustion engine 911 because you know how how how fast do you need to go in these cars i'm worried that with a 911 you have to have more power, you have to add more um electronic wizardry. Are we not just muffling the fun? You know peak what i like about the the new gt3. It unashamedly uses pretty much the same engine as the last year yeah, and that, in in times gone by, would have been unacceptable to the consumer. It would have been wow yeah. I expect the new gt3 to have a new, all singing or dancing engine should have another hundred horsepower. It should move on and on and on. Paul is saying, first of all, look at what we're dealing with politically we can't be spending any more money, making these engines and developing them, but also, why do we need more? The engine in the new car is very similar to the engine in the old car.

It is one of the great driving experiences it doesn't need to be any faster. You know the average speed limit in europe is somewhere around 75 miles an hour. You don't need to go much faster than you currently are, and it's wonderfully interactive. It sounds great it's. Normally aspirated one of the few car companies still making an engine like that it's more than enough it's brilliant. So what porsche has said is have the old engine we'll wltp it we'll do some other bits and bobs to it, but ultimately we're future proofing. It against legislation, manual, gearbox manual gearbox. What we have done is we've we've, given it double wishbone front suspension. Now, if you're, if you're a geek like me, that's a massive change for 911, because it's suspension at times has been a little bit comfortable sort of from now on it's going to be those small twists, look at other areas. You know five 550 horsepower, naturally aspirated engine that's, a sweet spot for track, and road it's, a the new gt3 is perfectly fast enough for any lunatic. You actually answered this question uh in the current magazine, that's on shelves now um about your favorite gt 911s. Ever for the benefit of the viewers back at home, which is the one 911 you would save and cherish forever. If you could only drive, one it'd have to be normally aspirated, because i i like atmospheric engines, so that's narrows it down to between either a current gt3 touring or a 997 gt3 rs a 3.

8 or a 4 liter makes no difference to me. One of those two or weirdly a second generation 996 gt3, because the steering in that car is just to die for. But i would say if you want to park one up to remind yourself of what it used to be like 997 gt3, rs, probably 3.8.