Porsche 911 Turbo S review

From £108,4359

Hybrid power pushes the most serious non-GT variant of the 911 beyond 700bhp

The new ‘992.2’-generation Porsche 911 Turbo S has arrived on UK roads. The twelfth technical iteration of this wild, revered, extra-special sports car in a history of a little over half-a-century, the Turbo has gone hybrid. Imagine suggesting that idea twenty years ago. Imagine even thinking it. Well, Zuffenhausen’s out to prove that you should be excited by it. And, as it turns out, with very good reason. 

Adopting a widely reworked version of the 3.6-litre hybrid flat six that the ‘992.2’ Porsche 911 GTS received in 2025, the new Turbo S uses two smaller electrically roused turbochargers (one per bank) rather than just one. It carries over the 911 GTS’s gearbox-mounted electric drive motor, but turns up the wick on that also. 

The influence of what’s gone on in the engine bay even reaches the car’s suspension and steering. Operating at 400 volts, Porsche’s T-Hybrid system enables technical upgrades for the Turbo’s PDCC active anti-roll bars and four-wheel steering systems, making them faster acting.

That’s the technical digest, which we’ll revisit in more detail in a month or so after we’ve borrowed a Turbo S Coupe for a full Autocar road test. For now, we’ll settle for an advanced flavour of how compatible with UK roads this even more powerful, electrified ‘übermensch’ 911 has become, courtesy of a £209,100 Turbo S Cabriolet; having first sampled a Coupe on roads in Spain late in 2025.

New Porsche 911 Turbo S cars in stock

 Porsche 911 3.0T 992 4S Targa PDK 4WD Euro 6 (s/s) 2dr opens in a new tab
£163,506
 Porsche 911 3.0T 992 Carrera S PDK Euro 6 (s/s) 2dr opens in a new tab
£135,900
 Porsche 911 3.6 T-Hybrid 992 Carrera GTS PDK Euro 6 (s/s) 2dr opens in a new tab
£137,900
 Porsche 911 3.0T 992 Carrera S PDK Euro 6 (s/s) 2dr opens in a new tab
£133,272
 Porsche 911 3.0T 992 Carrera PDK Euro 6 (s/s) 2dr opens in a new tab
£124,236
 Porsche 911 3.6 T-Hybrid 992 Spirit 70 PDK Euro 6 (s/s) 2dr opens in a new tab
£199,950
 Porsche 911 3.6 T-Hybrid 992 Carrera 4 GTS PDK 4WD Euro 6 (s/s) 2dr opens in a new tab
£149,990
 Porsche 911 3.0T 992 Carrera PDK Euro 6 (s/s) 2dr opens in a new tab
£121,372
 Porsche 911 3.6 T-Hybrid 992 Carrera 4 GTS PDK 4WD Euro 6 (s/s) 2dr opens in a new tab
£159,900
View all 74 cars

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DESIGN & STYLING

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We knew it was coming: the new hybridised 3.6-litre flat-six engine that made its debut in the 911 GTS last year, called T-Hybrid, has been turned up to eleven.

Mechanically much of it is the same here as in that application: it has the same block, married to an eight-speed automatic transmission that has an 80bhp electric motor between the engine and the clutch. The 911 Turbo is automatic-only and four-wheel-drive only.

Rear seats are now a no-cost option, because the car's kerb weight is quoted without them.
Matt Prior
Editor-at-large

Drive is never provided by the motor alone: this 400V electrical system is about performance rather than economy, and with this level of urge the Turbo S is some 14sec quicker around the Nordschleife than its predecessor (not a figure we’d normally note; but that is an awful lot, isn’t it?). 

The adoption of the high-voltage system means the engine is shorn of various pumps and ancillaries that would normally live atop the block, making the engine itself a little lower; with the space left above occupied by high-voltage systems.

All of those electrification systems have added weight to the Turbo S - more of which in a moment - but if you're not as fussed about a few extra kilos as some Porsche diehards, the Cabriolet only adds another 85 of them relative to an equivalent Coupe.

INTERIOR

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The cabin of the 911 Turbo S is essentially the same excellent one you will find in the basic 911 Carrera.

Perceived quality is high; and while many people still take issue with the stubby gear selector, in general Porsche’s plastics look and feel so fine that it plays perfectly into the brand’s sport-luxe vibe. This car retains the tactile appeal of a proper luxury coupe, as the '992' always has; even though it's 'only' a sports car.

The Turbo’s gone a bit mad for smoked grey trim. I quite like the ‘turbonite’ grey belts and the patterned decorative carbonfibre trim; but give me a standard Porsche crest on the steering wheel boss, please. Some things should be above passing fads.
Matt Saunders
Road test editor

Luggage space remains excellent. Up-front storage is fine, with deep door pockets. But the capacious front boot and the ability to throw large bags into the rear of the car make the Turbo S far more suited to touring than any mid-engined alternatives.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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One of the things that hybridisation has taken from the 911 Turbo is a starter motor. You push the engine start button now and there’s no preliminary whirring; just a sudden, slightly coarse ruckus that put me in mind of the early days of the McLaren MP4-12C’s thrashy-sounding V8. It’s not the enticing startup routine that special 911s have spoilt us with over the decades; although the new Turbo S’s flat six certainly becomes better to listen once it settles down - and then better still on the move, as its flat six character becomes more evident, the whoosh and hiss of audible forced induction adding welcome texture.

Is it fast? Formidably so. You wouldn’t imagine any big-hitting turbocharged engine could respond quite like this. Feeding in big applications of power in higher ratios isn’t quite like dolling out the instant torque of a big electric motor; but then you wouldn’t want it to be.

Carbon-ceramic brakes are standard and huge: 420mm in diameter at the front.
Matt Prior
Editor-at-large

There is, instead, pin-sharp urgency to the Turbo’s initial delivery of torque. But, where an electric motor’s delivery would wane as speeds rise, there’s also a building, swelling supply of dramatic firepower as the car accelerates. Unlike in something fast and electric, there is no sense that the Turbo’s engine has given its best before your foot has finished ruffling the carpet. There’s plenty given up; but a lot more still to come. And my word is it worth keeping your toe in for.

If you were in Hamburg and had, say, an appointment in Frankfurt, this is precisely the sort of car you would pick first and foremost – made for demolishing big distances at high speeds.

RIDE & HANDLING

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Suspension is by MacPherson struts at the front and a multi-link arrangement at the rear, with adaptive dampers and, more significantly, active anti-roll bars. These are driven off the 400V system, which makes them much more responsive. Likewise the rear-wheel steering.

If all of this sounds complicated, I think you’re right, but Porsche is better at tuning complex dynamic systems than perhaps anyone bar Ferrari, which has a smaller operating breadth anyway.

Different drive modes affect the damping and stability control but leave the steering well alone.
Matt Prior
Editor-at-large

If it also sounds a little heavy, again you’re correct. The Turbo S weighs 85kg more than before, at 1725kg - and this is now measured without the rear seats (now a no-cost option), which would add another few. It’s just inevitable with all of the additional hybrid hardware, which accounts for about 65kg of the gain, with bigger brakes (420mm and 410mm carbon-ceramics front and rear respectively), wider rear wheels (with 10mm-wider, 325-section rear tyres) than before to cope with the additional power, plus the body now has to be around 10kg heavier after some strengthening to meet latest legislation. 

Frank Moser, vice-president of Porsche’s 911 and 718 model lines, says you won’t feel the weight gain – and I think he’s mostly right.

On relatively good Spanish roads to the Ascari race circuit, the Coupe felt really precise. Very responsive for overtakes, as you would expect, with medium-weighted and -geared but incredibly accurate steering, impeccably well-tuned.

It rode really well, too. And in respect of its handling, you wouldn’t have known the active rear steer was doing its thing (Porsche does such systems better than anyone), and I could imagine commuting in it in summer or putting on a set of winter tyres and heading to the Alps in winter. 

On circuit, some people have previously found the Turbo S a little cold, a little too perfect. Not a bit of it; not this time.

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In its more tightly suspended drive modes, body control is impeccable. Some roll and pitch is allowed to lean reassuringly against, and there’s a hint of understeer that can be quelled with power or trailed braking; but it really moves around if you want it to.

It feels like there’s tremendous integrity too. This being a Porsche, I drove the car off the road, straight onto the circuit and ragged the bejesus out of it, with no drama, no fires, just some monitoring of the tyre pressures.

On UK roads, meanwhile, the Turbo S Cabriolet had excellent evident chassis integrity, too. It felt entirely natural and intuitive in its steering and handling; and had a way of tackling faster corners that spoke of 95 per cent stability and accuracy, with just a hint of vivid animation available if you were prepared to look hard, and carry plenty of speed, to unearth it.  

Most abidingly, however, it felt taut, flat, reigned in and secure. Terser with its body control, and a little less yielding, supple and communicative in its inclinations perhaps, than some of its forebears. But certainly like a car whose chassis has really stepped up; no doubt in response to a powertrain that's become even more potent than ever - but leading, arguably, to a bit of a character change for what was once considered Porsche's wild child model.

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MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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The Turbo S is now all but a £200,000 car without options, and there won't be a Turbo S that leaves the factory without any of those. That's about the going rate for a Ferrari Amalfi Spider or McLaren Artura Spider; but gone are the days when a Turbo would undercut cars of that sort by about 20- to 30 per cent on price, and then promptly set about duffing them up on the road. On price alone, this probably isn't a car you can call a giant-slayer; not any longer.

However, even though Porsche says the T-Hybrid system is about performance, it's more frugal than most cars of this performance, because the 911 is still (relatively) compact. You could expect near 25mpg in daily driving - unless you put your foot down.

VERDICT

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Famously once a sports car that sprouted four-wheel drive almost in order to tame an engine overhaul that’d given that engine total dominion over its chassis, the Turbo S now seems like a car that has moved decisively in the other direction. Even with 701bhp, it finally feels fully supercar-precise and -composed in the way it handles. 

It’s a sports car that absolutely demands to be known better. Watch this space and - after a full MIRA road test - we’ll see how much more it has to reveal.

There should certainly be plenty. The Turbos S is an ‘and’ sort of car, in that it will do the lot. Country road driving; high-speed autobahn miles; track laps; in-town commuting; even trips to the mountains on winter tyres. And it's hard to think of a car that will do all of those things with such composure and ability as this car has the potential for.

That was always the big lure of the Turbo, and remains so. The supercar for every drive and occasion has regenerated; and has some incredible new talents. We'll see where they take it soon enough.

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders Autocar
Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Tesla Roadster, Ariel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren Senna, Renault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.

Matt Prior

Matt Prior
Title: Editor-at-large

Matt is Autocar’s lead features writer and presenter, is the main face of Autocar’s YouTube channel, presents the My Week In Cars podcast and has written his weekly column, Tester’s Notes, since 2013.

Matt is an automotive engineer who has been writing and talking about cars since 1997. He joined Autocar in 2005 as deputy road test editor, prior to which he was road test editor and world rally editor for Channel 4’s automotive website, 4Car. 

Into all things engineering and automotive from any era, Matt is as comfortable regularly contributing to sibling titles Move Electric and Classic & Sports Car as he is writing for Autocar. He has a racing licence, and some malfunctioning classic cars and motorbikes.