How to Drive It: Porsche 911 -- It's Not the Car #38

Once, long ago, a German engineer looked at a VW Beetle and thought, “Ahh, my little streitzel, we should tango with the hot-rod physics of love!”

The Porsche 911 is divisive. People love ’em. People hate ’em. People fire ’em backward into ditches and Armco and spit excuses for how it wasn’t their fault—widowmaker car, Wreck-cellence Was Expected, blah blah blah. (“Too much understeer! Too much oversteer! Chappell Roan! ANYTHING BUT ME!”)

Is it the [fault of the] car? It is not!

This show’s format rotates weekly, because squirrel. This ep’s format is called “How to Drive It.” Please do not hit play while you are in the middle of crashing a Porsche and expect it to help.

Related Trivia: Ross and Jeff have raced 911s professionally. Sam has tested countless 911 variants for places like Road & Track and 000—from 2.0-liter Daytona winners to a 934, a 935, and most of the road models since 1964. Also, “streitzel” is both a Hans Stuck nickname and a kind of German pastry, and if those facts bring you joy, you are indeed nerdy enough for this show.

This episode was produced by Mike Perlman.

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⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Smithology: Thoughts, Travels, and Semi-Plausible Car Writing, 2003–2023⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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ABOUT THE SHOW:

It’s Not the Car is a podcast about people and speed. We tell racing stories and leave out the boring parts.

Ross Bentley is a former IndyCar driver and a world-renowned performance coach and author. Jeff Braun is a champion race engineer. Sam Smith is an award-winning journalist and a former executive editor of Road & Track magazine. Together, we explore the emotion at the heart of the machine.

We don’t love racing for the nuts and bolts—we love it for what it asks of the bag of meat at the wheel.

New episodes every Tuesday.

[bmwmpower]

Very interesting discussion. When I moved from F/R cars to a 911, it really exposed my driving flaws. The management of weight transfer is essential to driving 911s, thus braking needs to be done earlier, inputs smoother, the cars are very responsive to trail braking to initiate direction changes and manage entry speed, and you need patience with the throttle (at the apex). The 911s strengths are in acceleration coming out of turns (due to engine weight being over driven wheels) and in braking (engine in rear helps evenly distribute braking more evenly on all four tires and not too much on the fronts). This leads to really trying to lean into "point and shoot" driving..taking advantage of full throttle post apex and late braking, which results in significant weight transfer changes when trying to go fast. Now managing this weight transfer requires much more finesse because you are constantly harnessing the cars strengths while managing the magnified weight transfer effects. I found myself braking too late, over-slowing the car, not using gentle trail braking to help change direction and manage entry speed, and using throttle too early to make up for my over-slowing. I think once you drive a 911 well, managing the balance between point and shoot and momentum driving, you'll pretty much be a better driver in any other F/R or mid-engined car.

[nanthilrodriguez]

Thank you for doing this episode
I'm looking forward to it
I drive 911's in every sim I have ever driven
And everyone always says 911s are wierd, don't drive them, but they're the only ones that make sense to me

[philburtscher]

Love the weight manager description and totally agree - all cars require that and all have different characteristics, but that is what makes you a good driver.

[kensowul]

A note about Donohue and the IROC Carrera. In his book The Unfair Advantage on page 320 he writes "I wasn't close enough to the program to know wat was happening. At the outset Roger told me ""Don't get involved with those cars, and don't talk to anyone who is working on them. Don't even look at them! If you so much as touch one you'll ruin the whole deal"" He writes that Peter Reinhart and Milt Minter did the set-up work.

[BaPorscheFan]

Love it - thanks guys. Is it Spring yet? New to me 991 is waiting on me to put these experiences to practice when it arrives. (Winter now in Toronto :( …. Appreciate your expertise!

[nicklascaldwell]

33:00 a quick google search proved this right! many a modern 911, even 718s going round t17 three wheeled!!!

[EdDale]

I wonder how much the Porsche 911 reputation comes from the MBA’s buying them and not being competitive drivers?

[littlerhino]

New Ross Bentley content? Instant subscriber

[carstenschroder]

There are Videos that show Walter Röhrl driving a historic Flatbeetle "Racecar" around the rainy Northloop.
He is not steering with big inputs. But always.Literally.

He always balanced every imput.

More dancing than Wrestling.

[lipksjh]

Backwards through a hedge! The only way to properly drive a 911

[nanthilrodriguez]

This is my second comment. After watching this I just had to say something. I respect Ross, but this goes against everything I understand about driving Porsches. In online sim racing, some leagues will prevent you from driving Porsche entirely because "they're too different to drive", and there are some people who just instinctively and naturally drive faster in the Porsche than in front engeine RWD cars, even top-tier aliens setting world record laptimes, will set a laptime significantly slower in a theoretically faster car that isn't a Porsche. So, no, I don't think "Porsche driver" is a myth. I think there are people who are naturaclly predisposed to doing better in a Porsche than in other cars.

Also, driving a Porsche is just more fun than the other cars anyway. Sure I'd be happy as a clam to be racing any real life car, but I would opt to drive a Porsche every time.

[mikefleissner]

My 85 gt mustang will also oversteer w the blip of throttle. My next car is a 911 sc

[vercingetorige]

hurricane porsche seems a 964/993 ? given the viscous coupling on the front?

[Will__years_ago]

So i can drive a 1987 911 turbo in the rain at its limits same as if i was in a civic si?

[Petrol_and_Cabernet]

As a first-generation German American, Porsche typifies how stubborn Germans are.

Porsche took an incorrect design and spent the next 60 years improving the car, which proved that they were right the whole time.

[Rufus-wj]

So why has Porsche over the years been moving the rear engine closer to the rear axle if it was the ideal layout? In addition, they have been making it bigger to offset the rear weight bias of the early cars. Porsche...stop trying to defeat physics and show the world just how good the Cayman can be. "How do you tame a rear engine sports car? Make it bigger! "

[kerrymyers]

Listened for 4 minutes. No car discussion. Good bye.

[carstenschroder]

No comments jet? 👀🥴 Who gives us a summary?!🤣