The 2020 Porsche 911 992 Is the Newest Version of an Icon

this is the 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S and it's the newest version of an icon you all know the story the Porsche 911 first came out in the 1960s and it's been refined and improved and modernized and updated ever since this is the seventh generation of the Porsche 911 codenamed the 992 when it's making its debut for the 2020 model year and today I'm going to review it I've borrowed this 992 911 from Porsche San Diego which is my local Porsche dealership here in San Diego Porsche San Diego has all of the latest Porsche models of course and that includes the new 992 911 which is just starting to go on sale this month after a long wait so let's talk nine-nine - this car is replacing the nine nine one nine eleven which had been production since 2012 and like every new generation of 911 it's a little bit longer and a little bit wider and a little bit more powerful than its predecessor but it still keeps the same general profile this car is a 911 Carrera S which has 443 horsepower that's up from 420 horsepower in the outgoing Carrera S another thing that's up is the price the new 911 starts at 99 thousand dollars for the base level carrera model with 380 horsepower the carrera s like this one starts at a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars before options which are plentiful this car has a sticker price of just under 150 thousand dollars not for a turbo or a gt3 but just a 911 Carrera S every year it seems Porsche models just keep getting more expensive then again they also keep getting faster the new Carrera S can do zero to sixty as fast as 3.3 seconds which makes this car quicker than the Carrera GT and when you think about it like that it doesn't really seem quite so expensive and today I'm going to find out what else the 992 offers first I'm gonna take you on a tour of the 992 911 and I'm going to show you all of the quirks and features of the latest 911 then I'm gonna get it out on the road and drive it and then I'm going to give it a dug score and for more of my thoughts on the 9 9 2 click the link below to visit autotrader.com slash oversteer where I've also rounded up a list of the coolest older 911 models currently listed for sale on auto trader alright I'm gonna start the quicksand features of the new 911 with simply getting in because it's kind of a cool process if you have the Porsche entry and drive system you can just leave the key in your pocket walk up the car senses you and unlocks and you get in that's pretty standard in most luxury cars but the difference here is that the door handle is like pushed into the door so how do you pull it open what you do is you stick your fingers under the door handle it senses you and then immediately the door handle pops out and then you can pull it to open which is a pretty cool little trick and you can do it in one simple motion you stick your fingers under there and it senses you so quickly that you can just pull up immediately and your door handle will have already popped out and you can climb in and since I've covered getting into the 911 with these door handles let's talk about getting out so let's say you've driven somewhere you've parked your 911 and now you're going to go walk away but the problem is your car is unlocked and your door handles are sticking out so what do you do about that you don't have to go get your key and fish around for the lock button instead you just tap the door handle then the door handle retreats into the car and it automatically locks the doors and this little light flashes near the driver's mirror to confirm that your 911 is locked pretty cool now with all that said about the door handle it is worth noting that you can use the key to lock and unlock the car if you press the unlock button on the key you'll see the door handle pops out and then you can pull it and get right in and same deal when you're leaving if you press the lock button the door handle will retreat back into the car so you don't just tap in the door handle you do have a second way to do all that stuff and next up once you're past all the door handle stuff you actually climb in to the new 911 and I go over the interesting quirks and features of the interior starting with probably the biggest quirk that everyone is talking about and that would be the gear lever now the strangest thing about it is it's really tiny you can see it's only about two inches high it is just a very unusual gear lever for a sports car or frankly for any car here's how it works you push it forward for reverse you pull it backwards for Drive and then new Rolle is sort of a half-step in the middle if you want to put the car in park you just press the little P below the gear lever and then it goes into Park and below that you have a little M button that's for if you want to put the car into manual mode when you're driving and then you can use the paddles to change gears it's actually a pretty standard operation considering at such an unusual gear lever design now even though using the gear lever is pretty simple there are a few unusual items about it that are worth noting what is the fact that it doesn't say anywhere on the gear lever itself what gear you're in so if you're in Reverse neutral or drive you can't tell by looking at it instead the only way you can tell is in the gauge cluster in this tiny little display that lets you know which of those gears you're in the exception is Park which lights up a light in the middle when you press the P now another cool thing about this gear lever is the fact that it's sort of floating in the center console it looks like it's on its own Island which i think is a rather interesting and eye catching design at the base of that Island you can see it says 911 in this old-school 911 font which I also think is a nice touch now one interesting thing I've wondered about this gear lever since this car was first revealed is how are they ever going to fit a manual transmission in here right now all of the early Carrera S models are automatics but a manual is coming in a few months and I was always curious how can you get a manual in here since the gear lever is flanked by these buttons on either side and the answer is these aren't buttons on either side these black panels to the left and right of the gear lever is just decorative in a lot of other Porsche models they are buttons but in this car it's purely decorative may have no function and the result of that is that when you want to make a manual you can easily pull out this entire section and stick the larger manual transmission lever right in here now next we move on to some of the other interesting items in the center control area here one is the fact that all of the sunroof controls are in the center control stack they're not on the ceiling next to the rear-view mirror like in almost every other car instead you can see they're all right here and you press those to open or close the sunshade to open or close the sunroof that sort of thing a bit of an unorthodox place for your sunroof controls and next up near those sunroof controls directly below them you have a cup holder just one large center cup holder sort of the visual center piece of the entire interior this cup holder is meant for the driver and only the driver and you only get one now interestingly there's a little clip at the top of the cup holder if you press it you can pull out the cup holder and the car also comes with this little piece that can fit in the cup holder area so if you don't want a cup holder you can just have that storage space instead or you can switch them out whenever you want depending on your mood now next I'm moving on to the top of the center control area you have your climate controls and in this case some of this black panel trim actually is buttons like it is in the new cayenne and Panamera to turn on your defroster or a few other climate control items but your main climate controls are right above the gear lever and they are shaped to kind of mimic the gear lever only smaller that would be your temperature controls and your fan speed you can see they're very similar to the look and to the feel of the gear lever just kind of shrunk down a little bit I like them very high-quality looking and feeling controls now above those climate controls in the center area you have your climate vents pretty standard and above that you have five more little controls which were actually levers that you can push and this turns on various vehicle things your sport exhaust your sport suspension your hazard lights you can turn off traction control and there's a little diamond button which is a shortcut key that you can configure to be whatever you want something that you use frequently so it's always right there and once again the cool thing about these buttons they're really just levers that mimic the look of the gear lever and they have this texture at the end and it gives them a much more upscale feel than virtually any other button you even have this texture on the little climate control vent mover switches you can see if you touch them it's that same texture repeated from the gear lever again it gives it a much nicer more luxurious higher-quality feel than your typical plastic buttons or climate then changer dials now next I'm moving on to the rest of the Interior and its quirks and features I want to talk about the interior doors and door locks for a second it all electronic locking so when you press the lock button you don't hear the sound of door locks instead it just lights up in red to let you know that the doors are indeed locked that electronic locking thing is also carried over to the interior door handles when you pull them you're not pulling some mechanical latch but instead releasing an electronic one and so you can pull the door handle just a little and it'll pop open and then you can just push it the rest of the way like a normal door and next step moving around to the rest of the interior I mentioned the giant center cup holder for the driver but you're probably thinking well what if the passenger has a drink too fortunately the passenger also gets their own cup holder but it's a little bit more hidden it's over on the dashboard next to the glovebox you push this thing and then the cup holder comes out and there's even a little bottom that pops down so that you can place your drink there without worrying about it falling over or spilling or flying away and speaking of the dashboard one of the things you will first notice when you look at the dashboard is that there's an analog clock on the top of it that isn't technically a clock that's actually the sport chrono package and you can use it as a lap timer but when it's not in use as a lap timer it is a clock although not in the most traditional sense the time is displayed digitally in the middle of it and the giant hand that goes around is the second hand which is like twice the size as the actual clock display you don't see too many clocks that emphasize the second hand over the time but that's exactly what we have here and obviously you can also see that this sport chrono timer is finished in this bright green color Porsche calls it lizard green in order to match the exterior color of this car and next up moving down from the dashboard I want to talk about the steering wheel this particular design of steering wheel is completely new for the 992 and it looks really cool for one thing the paddle shifters behind the wheel feel really nice but that's not the coolest part to me the coolest part is these buttons coming off the horn they look like they're sort of floating in between the steering wheel spokes it's a very very cool design and it's an improvement over Porsches current steering wheel which in my opinion already looks pretty good but I love these sort of floating button and dials next up a couple of other interesting items worth noting with the steering wheel one is in the group of buttons to the left you have another button with a diamond on it this is a second shortcut key that you can program to be whatever you want so if you want it to pull up the radio or the reverse camera or whatever you can program that and finally another interesting steering wheel item is that coming off the center of the steering wheel to the bottom right you have the drive mode dial you can twist this dial and that adjusts what drive mode you're in what normal Sport Sport+ whatever and you can see in the gauge cluster screen it tells you which drive mode you've switched to as you turn this dial and speaking of the gauge cluster screen I have to say that this one is absolutely fantastic in some of my recent reviews of Porsche models I've been complaining that they're behind the times with their gauge clusters and they absolutely have been but not the new 911 the 99 2's gauge cluster has a screen over on the right and a screen over on the left and they show different information which I will cover in a second but probably the coolest part is that right in the middle of the screens is the tachometer kind of going back to Porsche heritage where the tachometer has always been a fixed gauge in the middle of the gauge cluster the cool thing here is they were able to integrate that in with the modern technology in the screens and I think they did a really good job of it but anyway next I want to cover what those two gauge cluster screens do the one on the right of the tachometer shows various vehicle information so that would be stuff like your trip information your tire information your drive mode your g-forces but it also has an excellent map that shows you with a satellite view exactly where you are that is the best most cutting-edge stuff I really like the fact that you can place yourself precisely on that map a lot better than the old crappy resolution stuff in previous Porsche models now over on the left screen you have a couple of dials also important one of them is your speedometer which of course you'll be looking at frequently but you might be wondering if the speedometer is over on the left and it's in this sort of relatively small dial not directly in my line of sight how I really know what speed I'm going the answer is that Porsche also prints your digitally in the middle of the tachometer which of course is right in the middle of the gauge cluster so you always have this supplemental speed display and speaking of screens next we move up to the center screen the 99 2's infotainment system which has several interesting quirks and features and I'm going to start with the spoiler because the spoiler is now controlled using the infotainment screen used to just be a button but now you have to go to the infotainment screen go to your car settings and then you can press the screen to pop up the spoiler hopefully this increased difficulty will cut down on the number of people who drive around at 12 miles an hour and heavy traffic with their spoiler up going yeah look at me I got a spoiler yeah what's up now next up with the infotainment system it's worth noting that this system is very similar to the one that I've already covered in the new Panamera and the new Cayenne I will link those reviews in the description below but I still want to cover some of the highlights and some of the more interesting quirks starting with the fact that it is very very responsive you can see on the map here it moves instantly when I move my finger and that's true just about anywhere you press on this system very responsive just about like a smart phone and that's what you want a lot of new car infotainment screens are not so responsive this one is a step up above a lot of them I also like the fact that this infotainment system will sense when my fingers are approaching you can see right now it has sort of a small menu so that I can see the map as big as possible but when I bring my fingers close to the screen the menu gets larger because I might be about to press something which is very nice take my fingers away and after a couple of seconds once again that menu get smaller so you can see the map next up another thing I really like about the infotainment system is the climate controls you go in here and you can see these are all the detailed climate controls the controls you would want to access if you really want to move on to something very particular or very minut some small little detail but the more important climate controls remain at hard buttons in the centre controls like I showed you earlier and I really like that you have all of the important stuff easily at your fingertips lot this climate control system is also very advanced so if you want to change some more advanced stuff then you go into the screen next up another interesting quirk of the infotainment system is the interior monitoring system this car has a feature where when you lock the doors a motion sensor turns on in the interior and if it senses any motion the alarm will go off now a lot of cars have that but the interesting thing here is how it operates you can configure the interior monitoring system to ask you every single time you turn off the car whether you want that motion sensor to turn on and that way if you're running into a gas station for just 30 seconds to pay for your fuel for example you can leave a pet in the car and it will ask you if you want to turn on the motion sensor and you can say no so it doesn't set off the alarm but obviously if you're gonna park your car at work for the whole day it will ask you and then you can activate the motion sensor to make sure your alarm will go off if there's an intruder and next up another interesting item in the infotainment system if you go into settings there's one for the service history now when you press it you can see there's no service history obviously this is a brand new car but that's really cool our porsche dealerships going to be able to put this service history right in the infotainment system and if so does that mean when you're looking to buy one of these used you can just go into the infotainment system to see this service history and you don't have to ask the seller for like 20 pieces of paper going back over 15 years of ownership it seems like an overdue improvement on keeping service history and next up we move along to the outside of the 992 and I want to talk lighting because two of the most distinctive Spile elements of this car are around back one of them is the light bar all the new 99 to 911 models have this big light bar in the back and it's very distinctive this has become a big trend in the car industry now LED light bars across the whole rear and Porsche is one of the trendsetters they've included it on basically their entire model range and that now includes this large light bar in the back of the 99 - but the other very distinctive lighting related feature back here is the third brake light and basically any other car the third brake light is horizontal and mounted somewhere in the rear window and this thing it's actually perpendicular to the light bar and it's mounted over the engine and you can see it's these two little strips that turn on that gives the rear of this car a very distinctive look compared to the 991 but also compared to a lot of other cars on the road you don't usually see third brake lights that look like that and next up another interesting item back here is the way that turn signals work you put on the turn signals and you can see it lights up the entire brake light on whatever side turn signal you've turned on and it actually lights up some of the light bar in the middle as well it's quite a large turn signal situation and speaking of turn signals another interesting piece of design is what Porsche did with the side turn signal now European regulations require a turn signal front and rear of course but also mounted on the side most automakers mount it in the mirror and that's why you have so many mirror turn signals on cars but you can see in the nine in - there's no turn signal anywhere including the mirror so what did they do with it well they moved it to the front it's now in front of the front wheels on this little orange reflector that is this side turn signal now this is important because this orange reflector is mandated by the US federal government cars sold here have to have an orange reflector in the front somewhere on the side in the past 9/11 owners have just swapped out their reflector for a clear one like European 911s have but now you'd have to figure out a way to get that turn signal to work in there too to the chagrin of 9/11 owners I'm sure I am next up we move along to the front of the nine-nine - and I want to talk headlights you can see it has the usual Porsche oval circular design and when the running lights are on you have these four dashes in each headlight cluster that identify newer Porsche models to let you know exactly what's behind you one interesting thing with the headlights is that when you switch it from the running lights to the full headlights you can see it lights up sort of gradually it has a more distinctive more exciting look than just headlights turning on then again it had better because if you look inside the headlights you can see Porsche does not just call these headlights but rather the Porsche Le matrix system and at the top it says X site no no these aren't headlights this is the LED matrix system with X sub 8 do I know what any of that means of course not and next up moving around to the back of the new 992 I want to talk engine cover if you can really call it that I'll show you what I made in a second but first something worth noting on the engine cover you can see there are these slats and then the brake lights but the placement and number of these is not random you have 9 that slats on the left 9 slats on the right and 2 brake lights in the middle 9 9 2 4 the 9 9 - 9 11 at least that's why Porsche claims they went with that slat configuration now if you want to open up the engine cover there's a little switch in the driver's door sill you pull it and then the engine cover opens right up but now you can see why I was saying it's not really an engine cover because you can't actually see the engine like at all you can put in oil here and other fluids but you have no access to your engine in the 992 which to me is crazy a Porsche 911 where you can't even look at your own engine let alone service it this is definitely a brave new world and next up I want to move on to the front trunk which is a hallmark of the 911 and opening it is about the same as it has been in the last few 911s there's a little switch in the driver's door silly you pull it and that gets it to this point then you have to get your hand in here unlatch it and then you can open it right up and you can see the front trunk which is actually reasonably large the 911s front track has always been pretty good this one is no exception pretty practical and you could easily stick a couple of overnight bags in there for a good weekend getaway one interesting item in the front trunk is the emergency inside trunk release and a lot of cars it's this ugly little plastic thing you pull but in the 992 it's a little button that says exit you press that and then you can exit the trunk and finally the last noteworthy item in the 992 is the back seat I'm going to climb in the back seat right now which is always a bit of a challenge I have the front passenger seat all the way forward you pull this leather loop and then you just kind of got it do your best Oh to get back here now even with the front seat all the way forward which it is I still cannot actually latch the backrest here and that isn't the only problem the seats are such tight bucket seats that I don't even really fit in them so they're not really a place where you can stick adults it's interesting to me the 911 always seems to grow a little bit larger wider longer every year but these back seats never get any better I'd love an explanation for that and so those are the quirks and features of the new 992 Porsche and 911 now it's time to get it out on the road and see how it drives all right driving through the 99 - my first thought is that the engine is surprisingly responsive I've always liked the new turbo non turbo but they're turbocharged but it's not called a 911 turbo I've always liked those engines because they are really responsive one of my biggest complaints with older 911s was as much as I liked the power trains they you really had to kind of build the power in order to get anything out of them the new turbo motors feel like they have a little bit more down low the transmission is just insanely quick as it always has been PDK has been fantastic since it came out ten years ago it's really really really quick seemless shifts to even in sport it doesn't shock you doesn't push you back one of the things that I haven't really loved about the 911 in the last few redesigns is that it just keeps getting a little bit bigger I've always kind of felt that the 996 was the last sports car 911 and now we're getting into more of a Touring Car 911 and that's certainly true when you look at the pricing the options are so luxury focus now with all the stitching but it still does drive like a sports car even if it has a larger size like a touring car even if it has more luxury stuff it's still so nimble and it's amazing to me that Porsche is able to make the car seem so nimble this car obviously is nowhere near as fast as a turbo turbo as an exotic sports car like the McLaren seem like that but it does move pretty well for in 40 horsepower it's a pretty strong number it moves very very quickly but I think this cars bigger asset is just how incredibly stable and planted and capable it is in the corners it's just incredible to me that a rear-engine car and that kind of a luxury car is just so good and going around turn the ride quality is pretty good not harsh really it's actually reasonably comfortable again that's another benefit of this bar kind of luxurious and daily usable without being too luxury it's incredibly incredibly good at steering still some of the very best of the business and Porsche does such a great job of taking care of the fact that the car feels light in the front because it doesn't really but a lot of sports cars you drive will have amazing steering but you start getting going fast and they start to lighten up in the front and Porsche has always done a great job of making sure that the car feels stable and the steering feels precise at pretty much any speed so rather than an end to now the question is you know is this the best 911 ever and you know that's the newest it's the fastest it should be right but I think a lot of it depends on exactly what you want and I think that's why some of the older 911s are starting to go up in value some lunches because some people are valuing what those older cars had the small interior back to basics no frills and if you're into that kind of stuff this cars got a lot there's a lot going on I showed me there's a lot of tech there's a lot of features importance but if you want the best combination if you want as much of the modern tech as possible along with the excellent driving experience this is the car the problem is just be prepared to pay for it because it's expensive and it only keeps getting more expensive and it keeps getting better too but pricier in place here and so that's the new 992 Porsche 911 to me it's amazing how little hype there is for this car and years past when a new 911 was coming out it was like the biggest story in the car industry but these days people are way more excited for the upcoming Porsche take on electric sports sedan which I guess is a sign of the times still for those of you who are still into the 911 you'll be happy to learn it is a fantastic sports car and now it's time to give it a dug score starting with the weekend categories and styling the 992 looks like a 911 that's not a bad thing but it's a familiar thing and it gets a 7 out of 10 acceleration does 0-60 in three point three seconds which is insane and it gets a nine out of ten handling it's sharp excellent and it gets an 8 out of 10 fun factor is good it feels a bit bigger and more muted than older 911 models but it's still enormous fun and it gets a 7 out of 10 cool factor is decent but not amazing to most people this will just look like a 911 and not the new 911 and of course it will start to just feel like a 911 as the 992 becomes more common it gets a 6 out of 10 for a total weekend score of 37 out of 50 next up are the daily scores and features this car has a lot of tech not everything but a lot like it's a 7 out of 10 comfort is about average worse than luxury rivals like the BMW M 850 i but more comfortable than the harsh stuff like the Acura NSX and Porsche GT cars and it gets a 5 out of 10 quality is excellent the interior is great with upscale materials and Porsche is known for reliability and it gets a 9 out of 10 practicality is normal for a car like this with an OK trunk and a small but existing backseat and make its a 3 out of 10 value is a mixed bag this car offers a lot but it also costs a lot and $150,000 is huge money for just a Carrera S it gets a six out of 10 for a total daily score of 30 out of 50 add it up and the Doug score is 67 out of 100 and that places it here against some other similar cars I've tested it ties the Aston Martin Vantage the Aston does better on the week and categories but the Porsche is more usable everyday but the real surprise here is that the new 911 is just behind the Audi r8 and the Ferrari Portofino but when you consider the Porsches 150,000 dollar price tag it makes sense to see it there and the new Carrera S is certainly nipping on the heels of some really serious exotic cars [Music]

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 2,367,900

Rating: 4.8449054 out of 5

Keywords: 2020 porsche 911, 2020 porsche 911 review, porsche 992, porsche 992 review, porsche 992 911, porsche 992 911 review, 992 review, 992 911 review, 2020 porsche 992 review, 2020 porsche 992, porsche review, porsche, doug demuro, demuro, porsche 911, porsche 911 review, new porsche 911, new porsche 911 review

Id: wYLMKAIJRd8

Length: 29min 34sec (1774 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 10 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/balzac2m]

Doug's video titles are so non-clickbaity, they border on boring.

[u/thesublimegnome]

She's a wiiiide girl.

[u/Ion-Trap]

I love how he reviews cars with unique colors.

I’m so bored of seeing black, white and silver

[u/MythresThePally]

Ever since I read the Jalopnik article about Porsche wheel cap alignment, I've been checking out every Porsche I can find for it. I can confirm this one has them properly aligned.

(In case you don't know, the lower "tip" of the emblem must point to the inflator nozzle.)

[u/Isfahaninejad]

911s are definitely getting way too big imo.

[u/Bentley-Benz]

Didn't you shoot this yesterday? Good hustle, Doug.

[u/[deleted]]

AUDI TT STYLING : 8/10

PORSCHE 911 STYLING : 7/10

ok doug

[u/thechemistrychef]

Excited to see the comparison with the C8 Corvette. It's probably the most anticipated car of the year

[u/dont_wear_a_C]

443 HP

$115k base for the Carrera S

$150k as tested by Doug