Quote:
Originally Posted by Funf6cyl
I agree here that I love the handling of the 911 as is. The balance of the car and the way it feels breaking away is sublime along with a myriad of other things that is does better than other performance cars. At the same time, the Boxster and Cayman are, from a chassis, balance, and dynamic standpoint, are world class, and that is an understatement. I don’t even think that the Cayman GT4 as incredible as it is, gets more than about 50% of what they are really capable. If they went mid engined in the 911, and even if they don’t go all out (which they’d never do since they always hold back a ton) I think it would be something else.
I still love watching the 911, with its “engine in the wrong place” and relatively low horse power cars knock out much more powerful cars like the 600LT or ZR1 or showing them up when it comes to being a better driver’s car.
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The thing is, they could go mid-engine and keep nearly the same proportions. It would still look like a 911. I'm not sure why that is such blastphemy. Every iteration of the 911 is more of a challenge to keep on top of other cars as far as performance. It's possible, it's called exotic engineering, and it just takes money to do it. You have to keep them getting ever-wider, add tricks like active swaybars, rear-wheel steering, and the list goes on and on, but the cost keeps going up and up at the same time. I think the hey-day of slinging the engine past the rear axle is gone. Make sure you are comparing apples to apples with the horsepower too, only dyno amounts matter, if porsche is advertising and making 500 at the wheels, it's definitely not the same as SAE at the crank. A 2017 Camaro ZL1 1LE bests a same-year 911 GT3 at "the ring" and it doesn't have nearly the extensive exotic-engineering feats to accomplish it. Power to weight, they are pretty close. Driver's videos show they can gnaw down on GT3s and it becomes a driver's race. If the 911 went mid-engine, it'd put some serious distance between cars like this.