washingtonpost.com's view

Bill Adam is a winner of many auto races, including the 1996 12 Hours of Sebring GT1 in Sebring, Fla. He’s had his share of frightening mishaps on his journeys to victory lane. He was not prepared for me.

“No! No! Not that way!”

I was zooming toward barrier cones and disaster here at the famed Watkins Glen International Raceway . . . at 90 miles per hour in a 2007 Porsche 911 Turbo coupe.

Moments earlier, Adam had told me to accelerate. I did. He had told me to look ahead, to maintain a forward view of the track. I didn’t.

We were both happy that Porsche’s engineers anticipated my failure. The new 911 Turbo has superior brakes — actively ventilated front and rear discs with six-piston brake calipers up front and four-piston brake calipers on the rear wheels.

The car stopped quickly, smoothly. We missed the cones, stayed on the track. Adam, now a Porsche driving instructor, stayed on message:

“Look ahead. Stop worrying about where you are. Start paying attention to where you’re going.”

He told me to go around the track again: “Faster! Faster! What are you afraid of? Push it to the floor, all the way to the floor. Look ahead!”

I was afraid to look anywhere — at the speedometer, or at the track. But the track seemed the safest option. I stared forward, pushed the accelerator, kept the 911 Turbo’s six-speed manual transmission in third gear . . . and prayed.

Adam offered consolation: “Finally broke 100 . . . Good. It’s a lot to learn in a day. But it’s fun, right?”

It was fun, apparently the kind of entertainment people who can afford Porsche 911 cars love. There was a gathering of regional Porsche clubs at the Watkins Glen track on the day of my humiliation. They were doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, all Porsche fans and owners, all eager to take their own cars for spirited, helmeted runs around the raceway — all eager to see the newest 911 Turbo, which last week went on sale in the United States at a starting price of $122,900.

The assembled Porsche aficionados were undisturbed by that number. Several made comments such as “not bad” and “thought it would be more.”

It could be much more. Porsche has a penchant for sticking it to its techno-worshiping buyers on the options. For example, customers who want even more braking power can order the car with Porsche Ceramic Composite Brakes, an $8,840 package featuring ceramic disc brakes for maximum brake cooling and stopping efficiency. And those who want to move a bit faster than 0 to 60 miles per hour in 4.7 seconds can pay $3,420 more for the optional Porsche five-speed Tiptronic S transmission, which can be shifted automatically or manually.

It is a wonderfully wild, yet marvelously sophisticated car, replete with a turbocharged 3.6-liter, 480-horsepower V-6 engine and an all-wheel-drive system (Porsche Traction Management) that instantly sends power to the wheels that need it most.

I and several other automotive journalists tried to make the 911 Turbo cars spin out on gravel roads. Perhaps we did not try hard enough. Maybe we didn’t do it right. But none of us could make the cars lose their composure.

I ended the day with a minor sense of accomplishment, having driven in excess of 100 miles per hour on an unfamiliar track without crashing or killing myself or anyone else. But I was troubled. Does a car such as the new 911 Turbo make sense in an era of rising gasoline prices, in a world where oil is harder and harder to find?

No.

And yes.

It makes no sense if your idea of conservation is to eliminate fun from every remaining drop of oil. It makes perfect sense if life without fun isn’t.

Porsche, as you might expect, offers a technological answer. Despite its rambunctious horsepower, the new 911 Turbo gets about 24 miles per gallon on the highway, which means it is a super car sans a super federal gas-guzzler tax. And through a combination of technologies, such as Porsche’s patented Variable Turbine Geometry, which more efficiently recycles exhaust gases to produce more engine power, the car’s harmful tailpipe emissions are negligible.

It is yet another work of practical hedonism, which best describes the current approach to vehicle development and marketing being taken by manufacturers of luxury automobiles and trucks. The objective is maximum pleasure, minimum guilt. The new 911 Turbo meets that goal going and coming.

Nuts & Bolts 2007 Porsche 911 Turbo Coupe

Complaints: None whatsoever. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Forgive me, for I have sinned. But given the opportunity in this car, I’d be perfectly happy and willing to sin again.

Ride, acceleration and handling: I have never driven a car that rides, handles or accelerates as well as the 2007 Porsche 911 Turbo coupe. It comes with an adjustable, dual-mode suspension system to help soften the ride on lousy roads and tighten it up on racetracks and better-maintained thoroughfares. It’s lightning fast. And even a neophyte can take it around curves at speed — if he pays attention to what he’s doing .

Head-turning quotient: Hot!

Body style, layout: Rear-engine, all-wheel-drive luxury sports coupe.

Engine/transmission: The new 911 Turbo coupe comes with a twin-turbo, 3.6-liter V-6 engine that develops 480 horsepower at 6,000 revolutions per minute and 460 foot-pounds of torque between 1,950 and 5,000 rpm. Turbocharging is a method of recycling exhaust gases to spin an impeller to draw more air into an engine for a better air-fuel mix. In doing so, turbochargers use otherwise wasted energy to produce more engine power with a minimum fuel penalty.

Capacities: The 911 Turbo supposedly has seating for four people. But the rear seats are worthless for anything except carrying luggage. There is space for a couple of soft-pack overnight bags in the trunk up front. The fuel tank holds 17.7 gallons of required premium unleaded gasoline.

Mileage: In highway runs, I averaged 23 miles per gallon.

Safety: Head and side air bags; traction and stability control; super-effective four-wheel, actively ventilated antilock disc brakes and other safety controls; the best active safety systems, to help you avoid crashing in the first place, of any car on the market.

Price: Pricing on the 2007 Porsche 911 Turbo starts at $122,900. Options plus the $795 destination charge can double that price.

Purse-strings note: Forget dealer’s invoice price and all of that. This is a rabid Porsche fan’s car for Porsche fans with money. It’s hard to bid against those people.