2021 Porsche 911

After introducing the next-generation 911 last year, Porsche has brought back the Targa version of its most popular sports car for 2021. In this video, Elana Scherr explains why the Porsche 911 remains one of our favorite sports cars.

[BIRDS CHIRPING] [ENGINE REVVING] [MUSIC PLAYING] ELANA SCHERR: This car was named after a famous race, and I would be perfectly happy to spend the day with it on a race track. But just going fast in a Porsche 911 doesn't do justice to it. There's a reason why the Porsche 911 is so popular as a daily driver and that is because it's just as good for a summer fun day as it is for a track rat, especially in this, the most perfect of configurations, the Targa. [MUSIC PLAYING] There's no actual award called very best kind of car roof, but if there was, I personally would award it to the Targa. But I'd make it share it with t-tops, you know, t-tops are the Coors beer, Targa's champagne. The 2021 911 Targa is available in two flavors, Targa 4 and Targa 4S. They both use a rear-mounted twin turbo six-cylinder engine and the difference between them is primarily performance with a few cosmetic tweaks on the 4S so that people in the know know that you have the high-performance one. This is just the regular old 4 and I have no complaints about its performance or its looks. In fact, I want to drive it again. Can I drive it again? Yeah, good. I would've done that even if you'd said no. These days, when I tell you that a car makes 379 horsepower and 331 pound feet of torque, you might not actually be that impressed. I mean, you can get a Honda Civic that makes almost that much, right? But the secret to Porsche's success is not the number of horses, but how well-trained they are. Power delivery in this car is flawless. It has no abrupt beginning and no noticeable drop off. That is partially due to the 8-speed PDK transmission, which is one of the best in the world, I think. Look, I got a story, story time. My husband absolutely hates modern automatic transmissions. He says there's too many gears. He can feel them going all the way up through the gears. He can feel them coming all the way down, like uh, uh, uh, like slowing you down. He says it's like driving a truck. He hates them all. Honestly, he hates this one too, but he did admit that he hates it less than he hates most of the others. I don't hate it at all. If you lack my husband's princess and the pea-like ability to feel shifts, unless you're looking at the tach in this car, you won't even know there were any. Now, if you put it in the Sport or Sport Plus modes, you'll notice a little more hang time in the revs, and then things might get a little bit bumpy. But if you leave it in the normal driving mode, a Tesla owner would be impressed. If you want more control over banging the gears, good news. The Targa 4S is available with a 7-speed manual transmission, no extra charge. Of course, handling in a 911 is a dream. I mean, you expect it, and it delivers. This car is a mind reader. It's like it just knows where you want to go and it goes there. You don't even have to turn the wheel. I'm just kidding, you have to turn the wheel. This 911 is all-wheel drive but it's such a light, nimble system. It never really feels like it's getting in your way, and its rear-wheel biased, so the car drives like a rear wheel drive car. It isn't like Porsche slapped all-wheel drive on to cover up some sort of imbalance, it just makes everything a little more stable and secure. I don't want to get this back. Do you want to come home with me? Yes, you do. Yes, you do. I'm going to guess that visibility and comfort for taller drivers is good in this car, because I'm pretty far forward, 5' 3", if you didn't know that from like every other video I've done. I had a little bit of a blind spot with this a-pillar, but it is not bad. I'll take it. Nope, not really a problem. Plus, you can get all kinds of driver aids, like blind spot monitoring and backup camera and that sort of thing. So if you're concerned about being able to see out of this car, it's not a concern. Don't worry about it. I actually only have two complaints about the 911 Targa and might as well get one of them out of the way now. You ever had work done on your house or apartment, like a home improvement project? You know how you wake up every day going, how am I going to spend $600 this morning? Well, specing a 911 is a little bit like working with a contractor. Every change you want to make is going to cost you $600. Or in the case of this extremely beautiful Burmester stereo system, $5,500. Adaptive cruise control, $3,000. It's not that I don't think the 911 is worth the money, it's just that, I mean, KIA offers adaptive cruise control standard. So I said that I had two complaints about the Targa. What's the second one? Well, the Targa roof may take only 19 seconds to go from top up to top down, but you can only do it when you're at a complete stop. And so far, in driving around, my average stop at a stoplight hasn't been a full 19 seconds. And since you can't move while the top is going down, you're sort of either blocking somebody who gets mad at you or you're kind of creeping forward with the top partially down like running around, holding your pants up, and you look like a dork. This car is too cool to make you look like a dork. Most convertibles can put the top up and down while you're still moving, why can't the Targa? [MUSIC PLAYING] Back in the dark days, the days before I had ever driven a 911, I was intimidated by them and I figured they were overrated. A lot of times when you're intimidated by something, you want it to not be that good. Just seemed like there was all this tribal knowledge that you had to have before you could even get in one, like what's a 992? As it turns out, a 992 is this generation of 911. There was also a 991, but there was also a 996 and a 997. It is very confusing. The thing is, once you get in one, you just immediately get it. Really, other than knowing that Porsche always puts its key on the left side of the car, you don't need to know any of the other stuff. It's obvious the interior is well-made. It's clearly beautiful. The steering wheel feels amazing. The shifter, well, OK, this automatic shifter is kind of a dumb little nubbin, but hey, if you want a cup holder and a big touchscreen, you gotta make room for them. And even though I don't like the appearance of this shifter, it feels really good. If you've ever wondered what the perfect feel of a toggle switch or the haptic feedback on a touch switch should be, get in a 911 and take notes. That said, nothing is perfect. Porsche offers a lot of customization in the controls in the 911, and it's very cool once you figure it out, but it will take some time with the owner's manual. For example, there's a button on the right side of the steering wheel that you can toggle to show a map on the gauge cluster, bunch of other things. A very cool option that this car has, a $2,700 option, though, is nose lift. One of the things with sports cars is that they're low and a lot of driveways, even maybe the driveway to your house, driveway my house, are too low and you scrape going in and out of them. So now, a lot of sports cars offer a nose lift which lifts the front of the car so that you can get better clearance, and then it comes back down so that you're all speedy and stylish looking. Porsche not only offers a nose lift, it offers a GPS compatible nose lift, so you can program in a location where you need to lift the nose, say, it's your workplace or your house. And when the car gets to that spot, it knows it-- haha, did you see what it did there? It knows it, and it lifts the front of the car automatically so that you can clear that obstacle and get on your way. Another thing that makes the 911 such a useful car, even if you want it to be your only car, is that there is a lot of space in it. It's got a generous front trunk, frunk, and while I wouldn't say that the rear seats are particularly generous for adults, they make an excellent cargo tray and you can fit child seats in them. I know several people who bring babies around in a Porsche and, you know, I mean I don't know what you're telling your kid when they start life in a 911. They're going to expect great things. It's all the thoughtful details, the beautiful interiors, the smart programming, the multiple different flavors of performance, those are the things that make the 911 such a consistent winner for almost 60 years. Sure, there are cars that are more interesting, like McLaren, or more affordable, Corvette, more dramatic, like all of the Italian sports cars, but if you just want one performance car that's blazingly fast in a straight line, balanced like a gymnast in the corners, and usable as a daily driver, the 911 is top of the list. [ENGINE REVVING] Like this car, want to see more like it? Hit subscribe, hit like. It's what encourages us to make more videos. Also, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Did you just lock? You just locked. Oh, look at that pretty profile. What a lovely looking car. Oh, gosh, it's almost as pretty as the hard top, but if only I had more sunshine. [WHIRRING] [MUSIC PLAYING]