Consider yourself a Porsche enthusiast? Good, because I am, too. And if you’re like me, you dedicate a sizeable glob of bandwidth — 5.0 GHz and/ or mental–to the specification of an imaginary sail of Porsches of differing determines, sizes, and business force. If I were to stroll among this lineup of flashing candy-colored machinery, I expect to find a window sticker on each vehicle wearing an option inventory abounding with manual transmissions, carbon-ceramic restraint, carbon-fiber trim, athletic sets, sport postponement, athletic radio, sport a/ c, sport carpets, and sport gloveboxes. Not on my imaginary list of frameworks is the 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet, because most convertibles exactly aren’t for the hardcore.

Sound about right? Hey, welcome to the Club for Helpless Porsche Dorks! Come grab a jug of doppelbock and let’s talk about the benefits of picking the Touring package on the 991. 2 GT3 or the wheel choices we prefer for the new Cayman GTS 4.0. Eyes forward; don’t peek into that Porsche showroom where a traditional, common-breed Porsche customer time picked up his or her 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet without consulting the online configurator, calling the factory, or going Paint-to-Sample. No, they’re about to drive a 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet just like the one I drove around recently for a week.

2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet: The “Normal” 911

As difficult as it may be to realize, us spec-sheet analyzing, manual-transmission hunting, sport-seat sitting, graphics-deleting, low-option special-order daydreamers make up only a fraction of Porsche’s customer base. I don’t need to remind you how sales of the Macan, Cayenne, and Panamera vastly outnumber the blended amount of Porsche coupes sold each year, likely more than twice over. Distilled further, of those who did buy a 911, you have to wonder how many of them simply strolled into a dealership and requested a well-equipped coupe or Cabriolet within a certain price range. Color, pedals, restraint, and exhaust likely were of no consequence, as long as the car didn’t clash with the Cayenne Coupe previously parked in the driveway.

All of this–sorry for the long lead-in, but it matters–brings us to the aforementioned 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet I cavorted around in for a few weeks. As far as I can tell, this PDK-equipped silver-over-red drop-top 911 is exactly the type of car normally snarled off your local dealer’s lot by someone looking for a fun-ish weekend convertible to putt up and down the California or Florida coastline, or midwestern country roads. It’s one of the “other” 911 s–a configuration that petitions far more to the informal cruiser than to pedants concerned with the finish on the wheels’ Porsche crest.

If you’re again nodding in agreement, you’re actually missing out, as I came to discover. After a few high-speed strolls in the California valleys, it’s clear that even in a Ft. Lauderdale-friendly configuration, the newest drop-top 911 is an impeccable open-air sports car, regardless of banality or paucity of enthusiast expression.

2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet: Option It Right

This well-spec’d press loaner arrived with the requisite $5,460 Sport Package, which includes the Sport Chrono package, shouty exhaust system, and a play sing to the now-standard Porsche Active Suspension Management( PASM ). Perhaps, then, my kudo has not been able to extended to include Carrera S Cabs sans goodies. Other alternatives included the exceptional Carrera Classic motors, plus Porsche’s rear-wheel-steering system that sets the Carrera S a sizeable distance from the locate Carrera on the subject of fancy footwork.

Elsewhere, it’s the same Carrera S we unanimously crowned a 2020 Automobile All-Star. This necessitates ability comes from the 3.0 -liter twin-turbo flat-six, chugging out a meaty 443 horsepower and 390 lb-ft of torque through the eight-speed dual-clutch PDK transmission. A seven-speed manual, is available, but since we’ve hitherto to drive the 992 with a persist, we can only speak for the efficacy of the bonkers-quick PDK.

2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet: Slower? Yeah, Right

Decollating the coupe hardly accomplishes the Carrera S’ excellent performance. With the Sport Chrono package, zero-to-6 0 mph in the 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet takes a inadequate 3.5 seconds, and car manufacturers says the car tops-out at 190 mph if you find a long enough straight. Blame the extra 0.2 -second to 60 mph on the additional 110 pounds of additional person and framework poising the Cab lugs around compared to the coupe, though neither is particularly a featherweight initiated with; the Carrera S Cab cracks the scales at 3,537 pounds.

Still, regarding the straight-line scamper, it sure doesn’t feel like 3.5 seconds–more like somewhere in the low-threes, as per Porsche’s longstanding practice of underrating superpower, acceleration, and top speed. As best I figure, the excerpt of 3.5 seconds referred to above what an average driver could hope to achieve on less-than-great pavement during a heatwave. Sure, sure–all I know is the pressure utilized on my x-axis during a full-throttle blast smudged the chalk string between just right and oh-my-God.

With the top down–achieved in just 12 seconds–your ears can’t escape the mechanical gnash and zing happening over the back axle. The death of natural goal in the 991.2 -generation Carrera through Carrera GTS yanked countless tears from the insufferable and the anorak among the Porsche faithful, but one ramp blast in a roofless 911 proves these 3.0 -liters possess a different tighten of aural excellence.

2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet: Roof Off? Time to Sound Off

If you’re after pure volume, full accelerator is mete cacophonous. The baseline baritone slam clangs various kinds of like dip a chainsaw into a container of clod demeanors, accented well by a noticeably audible turbo whistle and vast uptake scoot. Framed against a retaining wall or cliff face, the uptake stres was so peculiar, I can only imagine this is what it feels like to drive on the most periphery of a tornado.

Get out of the strait and narrow, and Porsche proves you don’t have to have a rigid coupe for dynamic excellence. As we’ve experienced in essentially every permutation of the 911 since the 996, Porsche’s flagship sports car is an exercise in effortless, unshakable confidence. Changes between coupe and Cabriolet are subtle enough to necessitate back-to-back drives, but the drop-top undoubtedly loses a smidge of sharpness over the whip-crack Carrera S coupe we drove last year.

2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet: Input Perfection, Output Pure Fun

When I say “loses a smidge, ” it really is measured in almoast indistinguishable inconsistencies. Steering, braking, and control inputs are preternaturally well-balanced to the point where it’s almost–but not quite–frustratingly excellent. As excellent as hotshot BMWs, Mercedes-AMGs, and Corvettes is likely to be, there’s just something intangibly exacting about Porsche input tactility; it draws me want to dump a pack of 911 personas on each automaker’s doorstep with “FIGURE IT OUT” scrawled across the box in sharpie.

Nothing brand-new to report on the world-class chassis either, though the new PASM setup for the 992 -generation allows the engineers to start with softer damping that ramps up enormously in Sport mode without being overly harsh during the day-to-day slog. With no ceiling to channel jolts from the expulsion, convertibles usually suffer from disorderly rattles and form shakes more than their coupe counterparts, but the 992 Carrera S Cab journeys beautifully over divulged pavement and stretch braces without so much as a judder.

When you’re done hoovering up squirrels and grapefruit-sized rocks with that uptake suction, the Carrera S Cabriolet agrees down to a distant whistle in Normal mode, frisking every bit the top-down riviera cruiser Porsche designed to be. With the top up, additional gale sound is unavoidable, but thanks to lengthy resonate deadening and magnesium paneling in the soft roof itself, any extra noise is muffled fairly that you don’t even think twice about it after a few seconds on the highway.

2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet: Sunny Superstar

It admittedly took me a bit to figure out what type of enthusiast would gravitate toward the 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet, outside of the aforementioned pay-in-cash, pick-it-off-the-lot today superstar, but after some mixed consume, I figured it out.

If you’re getting a 992 coupe, stick with a well-optioned base Carrera unless you’re made of money. I stand by my prior assessment that the Carrera is genuinely all you need for 911 magical, but if you’re after some toupee-tousling wind, conclude the leap to the Carrera S Cabriolet and bounce the basi Carrera Cab. Now, I haven’t driven the base Cab, but I can throw the pieces together: With nothing to block you from that 443 -hp stunner out back and the chassis upgrades levied on the “S” trim, I guess the Carrera S Cab parcels more thrills than the basi coupe, especially for a weekend ride.

So, the next time you waste an afternoon house your imagination Porsche fleet, maybe let your trackpad finger wander over to the Cabriolet discrepancies. The crop-top profile might not cause daydreamings of an IROC RSR or a 964 Turbo, but the 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet–when equipped correctly–is as evocative as you’d ever crave a modern non-GT-series 911 to be.

2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S and 4S Cabriolet Specifications

ON SALE September PRICE $129,250/$147,280( base/ as experimented)

ENGINE 3.0L twin-turbo DOHC 24 -valve flat-6/ 443 hp@ 6,500 rpm, 390 lb-ft@ 2,300 rpm

Transmission 8-speed dual-clutch automated

LAYOUT 2-door, 2+2 -passenger, rear-engine, RWD/ AWD( 4S) convertible

EPA MILEAGE 18/23 mpg( city/ hwy)

L x W x H 177.9-178.4 x 79.7 x 50.7 -5 1.2 in

WHEELBASE 96.5 in WEIGHT 3,537 lb

0-60 MPH 3.5 sec

TOP SPEED 190 mph

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