Summary
PORSCHE'S 2006 911 CARRERA CABRIOLET IS BUILT FOR THE SERIOUS DRIVER
Real Porsche people never say "911," unless they feel kindly (or superior) toward the dunderheads around them. Amongst themselves they natter on about how the "996" damaged the soul of the "993" but the "997" was healing of that without losing the mannerly quality that the "996" introduced. But allwe bystanders need to knowis that the numbers designate specific models of the 911 and are rather like secret handshakes for the in-crowd. For the rest of us: Today's text is the 2006 Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet. That's a road-loving convertiblewith a 3.6-liter engine, the six cylinders lie flat and opposite each other to keepweight and silhouette lowas is Porsche'swont. The transmission in the Cabrio I drove is Porsche's excellent Tiptronic 5-speed. Tiptronic means you can treat the car as if it were an ordinary automatic when snail-paced traffic stops and goes. Or if the road and your mood prefer, it can be shifted manually, most enjoyably by thumbing a mounded control located on the handsome steering wheel just where well-placed thumbs should be (drivers' hands at three and nine if the wheel were a clock face.) Clutchlessmanual shifting is increasingly common on even high- performance cars.When a road is invitingly empty and sinuous themanual mode can be evokedwith the usual pleasures of shifting for one's self. Lovely throat-clearing engine sounds seem to approve. Of course Porsche does this particularly well. I say "of course" because that is always my response when I get into a Porsche-a Boxster S, a Cayman. Even the Cayenne, the SUV that set purists tomaking over-mydead- body remarks when it was first announced. Now even some of those diehards can be seen, sitting low and behind sunglasses, in these practical yet sportive worker bees. Porsches are simply well-appointed, well-behaving, high-performing choices for pleasurable transport in whatever formthey take. Of course. "Cabriolet," or "Cabrio" is a fancy way of saying convertible. One needs a fancy way to say it with the button-pushing ease of going topless when the whim arises or sealing up in a snug quiet cocoon if the weather scowls. For those into those 911 numbers the 2006 Cabrio is a 997, which means it has some cosmetic changes, some front- bumper smoothing, some simplification, some picking of nits that only a direct comparison with its predecessor is apt to reveal. It's the sort of car that may not evoke a "Wow!" from a passerby but more likely a nod and a soft: "Nice car." That sort of reaction is easier to live with. Probably because it more closely matches the driver's - at least this driver's-experience with it. It is nice, indeed, and it gets nicer every minute spent with it. The size of the Cabrio only seems irrelevant. I noticed at a highway rest stop that it was the same length, give or take a smidge, of a Honda Civic coupe parked alongside, however the wheelbase is considerably shorter. It looked wider because of the muscular bulge of the fenders over the widely spaced wheels. All the lines flow, and the result is the car seems neither large nor small but just right for its purposes. Andwhat purpose is that? Being a tractable sort,wellmannered and given to showing off onlywhen asked to, the car can take you and a friend to the office, to dinner, to theater, tomarket.However the fat pig bought their must be the proper size to fit, for instance, in the nicely deepwell of the luggage bin under the front hood. (The engine, of course, resides in the rear.) The vestigial back seats might serve to hold a medium-sized porker for a short haul (or pre- kindergarten children) but little else and for limited time. Look upon the Cabrio as a twoplace carwith behind-the-seats cargo space and rejoice. It's aweekend sort of car for twowho dress simply but like to go in style. Even better, it's a solo sort of car for a serious driver who prefers the companionable sound of engines, tires and wind to any other. The seat hugs a driver in position; the steering wheel adjusts to suit and the instruments are readable (a digital readout for the speed in the middle of the tach makes precise what the needle of a dial speedo tucked up out of the way hints at quite generally.) Steering (a variable ratio rack-and- pinion type) is of that precise sort thatmakes you seek out corners just to dart around. The easy smoothnessmakes for nice giant slalom sort of roads aswell; "swooping" comes to mind. Like every Porsche I know, the Cabrio is a dancer. This Cabrio, a simple Porsche, offers 325 horsepower, which can be immediately called to service, quickly shrinking whatever is in the rearview mirror, or it can be fed gently without urgency. Either way the response is immediate and appropriate.While driving to Colorado Springs partly on I-25, I followed for too long some ninnies in a turbo Beetle who never left the so-called passing lane. Then they decided to play games when I moved to motor past them on the inside. They sped up tomatch my progress, apparently hoping to trap me behind an RV in my lane now being overtaken by both of us. Yes, I could have braked and pulled behind them again, but I did not. I hit the loud pedal. Up came the brasses, and I was instantly rocketing at a speed appropriate to escaping gravity. I left them as if they had been lassoed and hog- tied. The immediacy and completeness of blowing them off surprised even me. Talk about "empowerment." It was gratifying to know such a capability was under my right foot. The figures I have read say 60 mph will come up in 4.8 seconds from a stand still. If you are at Bonneville you might check out the claimed 177 mph top speed. Suffice it to say the Cabrio is up to any likely needs on the highway. Delivered without travail and in a pleasing manner. Of course.See the full content of this document
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