Porsche cracked it in 2014. Or rather, it re-cracked it. Way back in the Sixties and early Seventies, the 911 Targa was an enormously popular model. So popular, in fact, that one in three first-generation 911s were Targas. But over the generations that proportion fell off a cliff, crashing to an all time low with the 996 version that spanned the turn of the century. Just one in 20 fifth-generation 911s were Targas.
Porsche must have wondered why it bothered. The 997 Targa fared a little better, but it was with the introduction of the 991 variant in 2014 that Porsche finally figured out how to make the Targa thing work in the modern era. It ditched the gawky-looking sliding glass panel that was introduced in the mid-Nineties and reintroduced the distinctive roll-over hoop with a wraparound rear screen. All of a sudden, the 911 Targa actually looked quite cool.
The result? People started buying them again. Porsche sold more of those Targas than it did over the three previous generations combined. Admittedly, some of these figures are slightly misleading: in the very early days of the 911 there was no cabriolet model, the Targa being the only droptop version you could buy. Since the early Eighties, though, the Targa has faced tough competition from within in the shape of the more conventional cabriolet with its full-size folding canvas hood. But the way Targa sales have rebounded since 2014 (one in 12 previous-generations 911s were Targas) demonstrates how much more appealing the Targa proposition has become in recent years.
And to nobody's surprise, Porsche hasn't messed with that winning formula one bit. This latest 992-based Targa still has the eye-catching roll hoop that contrasts with the body colour, plus an enormous and elegantly-curved glass panel with a smaller fabric section that positions itself above the two front seats. Just like before.
There's something almost art deco-ish about that roll hoop, or at least there is when it's finished in the standard satin aluminium. The Carrera White press car I drove had a black hoop (a £413 option) and that, in my view, completely undermines the Targa's whole look. While the basic roof formula hasn't been tampered with, there have been lots of detail revisions throughout the body, the chassis and the powertrain to make the Targa a more sporting sort of 911 and less of a boulevardier.
I remember driving the previous 911 Targa in Italy in 2014. I found myself driving it harder and harder and harder, taking more chances and feeling increasingly less comfortable at the wheel because I just wanted to feel something. I wanted to be reminded that although this car beneath me was a Targa, so too was it a 911. That moment never came. But it came in this latest version almost the instant I pulled off the motorway and onto some familiar and flowing B-roads.
The Targa is more closely related to the 911 cabriolet than the coupe. Compared to the previous model, this new one is 45mm wider across the front axle and it has more shapely front arches to house that extra track width. The roof mechanism now operates a little faster than before (it'll do its thing in 19 seconds) and it remains a piece of kerbside theatre: the big glass panel moves upwards and back, as though the car is passing it over to the vehicle behind, and the fabric panel lifts and folds itself in two before slotting into the compartment behind the tiny rear seats. Then the glass panel returns to its normal position.
All new Targas are four-wheel drive, the basic model powered by a 3.0-litre twin-turbo flat-six that develops 385hp and the Targa 4S (tested here) by a similar engine with 450hp. A seven-speed manual gearbox will soon be available on the 4S as a no-cost option, but not the more affordable version. The car I drove had the eight-speed PDK transmission, which has one more forward ratio than the PDK 'box in the previous 991-based Targa. (Incidentally, the top two gears are for cruising: this Targa 4S will hit its 189mph top speed in sixth).
If you do spec the manual gearbox, you'll lose the electronically-controlled differential and instead get a purely mechanical LSD, though it too can vector torque between the rear wheels. The electric differential is an option on the Targa 4. Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) is standard across the Targa line-up, while rear axle steering is an option on the 4S. Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control (PDCC), which seeks to cut body roll in corners, is also available as long as you have rear-steer, although as I'll explain shortly, it's one upgrade you should go without.
This test car came very heavily loaded with extra kit, including PDCC at £2273, rear-steer at £1592 and a sports exhaust, which costs £1844. The list price for the 911 Targa 4S is £109,725, while this car with all its toys would set you back £129,172.
Most 992s I've tested have had the optional PASM Sport suspension upgrade with a 10mm ride height drop. This one didn't and the result was the best-riding 911 I have ever driven. It was a revelation. Whether hacking along a motorway, knocking about town or hammering along a broken and rutted B-road, the suspension was never anything but beautifully fluid and compliant. It made all those PASM Sport-equipped 992s feel fidgety and tense. Along really tricky roads with heavily weather-beaten surfaces, this Targa 4S was wonderfully composed. Quite how Porsche is able to make a sports car with 20-inch wheels on the front, 21s on the back and relatively little wheel travel ride in that way is a mystery to me.
Combined with the very long eighth gear (which means the engine spins away inaudibly at only 1500rpm at 70mph) and, with the roof up, perhaps the best wind and road noise isolation of any current 911, the Targa 4S is an effortlessly usable long distance machine. It's just so refined. There is a little wind rustle and a touch of that typical 911 tyre roar, but overall this thing is so quiet on the motorway you could be whipping along in a Panamera.
It's also so much more enjoyable to drive than the previous Targa away from three-lane highways that you wonder if Porsche fired its entire engineering team and employed a new one. Whereas that version felt flat-footed and heavy, this new one (despite its substantial 1750kg kerb weight, with a driver) is alert and agile, interactive and tactile. It's actually more fun to hoof up a B-road than the last two-wheel drive Carrera S I drove.
It steers with real precision, but also with the kind of response and sense of connection that lets you unconsciously place the car exactly where you want it. The Targa 4S isn't a knife-edge sort of 911, one that you balance on the throttle on the way out of bends. Instead, it's a grip-and-stability kind of car, albeit with just enough poise and adjustability to stop it from being oppressively grippy and inertly stable.
I'd love to try one without PDCC. That system cuts out body roll in bends, which probably seems like a very good thing when you're staring at a series of graphs on a computer screen in an engineering office. Out on the road, it just means you can't feel the car working beneath you. I think PDCC labours under the illusion that it's unimpeachable grip, infinite body control and effortless performance that make a sports car fun to drive, whereas in reality you could make any car more rewarding on the road by taking away a good chunk of all three things.
On the other hand, the four-wheel drive system works so subtly that you aren't aware the front wheels are driven at all. You just feel as though you're driving a rear-driven car with infinite traction. Really fling it around, of course, and you'll be aware of the front axle clawing you out of a slide, but the rest of the time it does its work imperceptibly. Meanwhile, despite that stunning ride quality, body control over a three-dimensional road surface remains very good indeed without being so iron-fisted that the car feels lifeless.
What you do feel at the wheel is boundless confidence. You're never left guessing what the steering is trying to tell you, nor if any of the four contact patches is about to relinquish its grip. With massive straight-line performance as well, the Targa 4S is blindingly quick along a road.
The turbocharged engine is brilliant, and what you lose in terms of response and free-revving energy compared to the long since departed normally-aspirated flat-six, you more than get back in mid-range muscle. It helps that this one pulls to its redline at 7500rpm with real gusto and that, with its sports exhaust, it sounds tuneful as well. The noise actually builds to a crescendo as the revs rise, rather than blaring flatly throughout the rev range. The PDK transmission is faultless as well, as long as you can live with a paddle shift gearbox, but the brakes are not. Actually, it's the brake pedal itself that's at fault, the inch of dead travel right at the top of its arc feeling not at all Porsche-like.
As modern performance cars grow bigger and heavier, but also faster and more capable, I find those with removable tops increasingly appealing. With this car's roof in position, 70mph could be 40. Stow that small canvas hood, however, and you instantly feel so much closer to the whole experience. The way the wind noise changes in volume and pitch with speed tells you how fast you're travelling, while you're much more keenly aware of how hard or otherwise the engine is working.
With its roof raised, the Targa 4S does a fine impressions of a 911 coupe, its structure only fidgeting and shuddering the tiniest amount. Given all of the above, is the 911 cabriolet now completely redundant? For one very good reason, it's not. And it's all to do with wind management. At anything over town speeds and with the top down in the Targa, you sense the air reverberating violently around you. It's like somebody's playing the opening few bars of the EastEnders theme tune on your skull.
That's fine, though, because there's a small deflector atop the windscreen header rail that you can deploy manually. That wipes out the buffeting, but it replaces it with the kind of rushing white noise that you can't tune out of. That white noise is vastly preferable to the buffeting, but it's not something cabriolet buyers have to put up with. Nonetheless, and with all things considered, this is the droptop 911 I have enjoyed driving the most. I have sneered at 911 Targas in the past, but will do so no more.
SPECIFICATION | PORSCHE 911 TARGA 4S
Engine: 2981cc, flat-six, twin-turbo
Transmission: Eight-speed PDK, all-wheel drive
Power: 450hp @ 6500rpm
Torque: 391lb ft @ 2300-5000rpm
0-62mph: 3.8 secs
Top speed: 189mph
Kerb weight: 1750kg
Economy: 25.4-26.4mpg
CO2: 244-253g/km
Price: £109,725 (£129,172 as tested)
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