View exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverFrom the September/October 2025 issue of Car and Driver.Michigan can be such a bore. Sure, the water-winter wonderland is flush with spectacular beaches, miles of shoreline, and scenic snowmobile trails. It also possesses abundant islands, waterfalls, and wildlife. But when it’s time for an exciting drive? Snooze alert. In a place so rich with automotive history, the roads are about as entertaining as a Plymouth Reliant K-car—with an equal number of curves.So, we find ourselves looking outside the Mitten for twisting ribbons of tarmac. We have our usual favorites in Southern California: Highways 33 and 243, for example. Southeastern Ohio’s Hocking Hills region has long been our go-to playground that isn’t a multiday drive or a flight away, but it has recently become overrun with tourists and driving enthusiasts. Scan the map farther east within the state, however, and you find a winding scribble that stretches from the city of Zanesville, east of Columbus, south to Little Hocking, near the West Virginia border. Ohio State Route 555, also known as the Triple Nickel, is sometimes called Ohio’s Tail of the Dragon. It’s been a while since we drove it, though, so we decided to find out whether it’s worthy of that nickname.Marc Urbano|Car and DriverThe Triple Nickel The 63-mile-long Ohio State Route 555 connects Zanesville and Little Hocking, near the West Virginia border. Rolling terrain, on-camber turns, and blind crests make this squiggly line on a map worthy of a detour. The middle third is our favorite because it’s the most isolated and least populated. Fill up and pack a lunch, as fuel for both cars and humans is scarce along the route. A great road needs a great car to determine its worth. Similarly, a great car needs a great road to reveal its true potential. To test the symbiotic relationship between car and road, we enlisted Porsche’s newest 911, the Carrera GTS. The GTS model bridges the gap between the sportiest base models and the racetrack-ready GT3 versions.HIGHS: Athletic chassis, crazy-quick acceleration, no real sense that it’s a hybrid.The refreshed 992.2-generation Porsche 911 Carrera GTS’s T-Hybrid door sticker is a tip-off that something entirely new has come to the 911: electrification, which arrives by means of an electric motor tucked between the engine and transaxle. Not since the air-cooled engine hit retirement age has there been such a jarring change to Porsche’s 911. We pointed the nose, with its new active grille shutters, south and headed out to a dimly remembered road in a familiar car with an unfamiliar powertrain. view interior PhotosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverGive the engine’s start/stop button to the left of the steering wheel a push—the key-twist action is no more—and the e-motor incorporated into the eight-speed dual-clutch automatic rouses the flat-six to life instantly. The analog tachometer that sat front and center is gone, replaced by a digital version. At least the fully digital gauge cluster offers copious information, and there’s even a mode that rotates the tachometer to display the redline at 12 o’clock. When it first fires up, the sound is the familiar 911 waffling burble, but the engine marks a departure from the twin-turbocharged 3.0-liters that powered previous GTS models. In a world filled with engine downsizing, Porsche flipped the script with a wider bore and longer stroke to make a flat-six that now displaces 3.6 liters [see “E-Day,” below] and relies on just a single turbo for boost. The turbo contains an electric motor between the compressor and impeller housings to minimize lag but can also use the exhaust gases to spin that tiny motor to recoup energy to feed the 0.9-kWh lithium-ion battery that lives in the GTS’s nose.view exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverCenter-lock wheels come standard with the GTS.Despite added displacement, the 478-hp flat-six makes only five more horses than the outgoing GTS’s 3.0-liter. The electric motor incorporated into the transmission can add up to 64 horsepower in 10-second bursts or 53 ponies continuously. In total, the powertrain cranks out 532 horsepower and 449 pound-feet of torque, gains of 59 and 29 over the previous GTS.At idle, the flat-six sends 54 decibels of engine clatter into the cockpit. Underway, the wide Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperSport R tires thump over expansion joints and tar strips to do their best impression of the drum intro to Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher.” We measured 75 decibels at 70 mph. That’s louder than a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 392. More on the Porsche 911
- 2025 Porsche 911 Details, Pricing, and Specs
- 2025 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS Is a Stealth Hybrid
But there’s a bit of Harvey Dent syndrome here, a two-faced personality determined by the road surface. Concrete is by far the noisiest, and different aggregate blends seem to have their own pitch. Crossing the Michigan border and hitting the asphalt of Sylvania, Ohio, is like putting on noise-canceling headphones.
The GTS comes standard without rear seats, presumably to counter the additional weight of the hybrid components. Adding the seats is a no-cost option. Though the seats may be largely uninhabitable, optioning that foam-and-leather barrier to muffle some of the tire and engine roar is a no-brainer.
view interior PhotosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverPorsche purists cry foul for the 992.2’s lack of an analog tach and traditional left-hand key slot, which a screen and a button have replaced.view interior PhotosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverYou enter Route 555 from the north on the south side of Zanesville. Don’t blink or you’ll miss the Triple Nickel Saloon, one of the limited attractions along the 63-mile stretch of road. The first few miles offer places to experience the GTS’s terrific acceleration. With launch control engaged in Sport Plus (you can also push the Sport Response button on the drive-mode dial), the flat-six will rev to about 3900 rpm and hold there. Lift off the brake, and the clutch engages, the tires hook up, and the GTS rockets to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds and through the quarter-mile in 10.6 seconds at 131 mph. How good is that? It ties the 700-hp 911 GT2 RS to 60 mph and trails it by just 0.4 second in the quarter.Lows: An annoying amount of road noise, punishing ride, elevated starting price.It’s best to keep the speeds in check, as the Triple Nickel is the best roller-coaster ride outside Sandusky, Ohio. Blind camelbacks fall off into deep dips, sometimes into corners. Get it wrong (or right, depending on your perspective), and you’ll find yourself airborne. The brakes are your best friend on this road. The GTS’s six-piston front and four-piston rear chompers bite into meaty 16.1-inch cross-drilled rotors up front and 15.0-inch units in the rear. There’s a hint of a dead spot at the top of the pedal, but push past that, and it’s a firm and reassuring feel with more pressure modulation than travel. Stops from 70 mph require just 140 feet. That’s shorter than what the lighter GT2 RS can do on Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s.view exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverSpeaking of weight, the GTS now has more of it. Electrification has allowed engineers to remove the accessory drive, and the 3.6-liter six is around 40 pounds lighter than the prior 3.0. But the hybrid components are hefty, and the GTS crossed our scales at 3638 pounds. That’s 239 pounds more than the old automatic GTS we tested, although that one came with carbon-fiber bucket seats and carbon-ceramic brakes. Both of those options are available on the T-Hybrid, so there are ways to lighten it up.The portion of the Triple Nickel between the towns of Ringgold and Chesterhill is the most entertaining—the hilliest, twistiest, and most thrilling section. Here, the extra weight matters none. The rear-axle steering (now standard) keeps the GTS tied to apexes. The steering effort is dialed in, and the action is as predictable as ever. Some automakers offer three or four steering modes. Porsche offers zero adjustability. It’s just right, no need to mess with it.Our confidence growing, the GTS attacks this road like it’s on our daily commute. The Goodyears are predictable and friendly, even when you exceed their 1.07-g limits.view exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and Driverview exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverSpin the drive-mode dial to Sport Plus to unleash the powertrain’s full fury. With the e-turbo quickly spooling up and the e-motor assisting whenever it can, including between gear swaps with blips of torque, the GTS hustles hard from corner to corner with no perceivable lag. And the data backs it up: The previous GTS needed 3.9 seconds in our rolling-start, 5-to-60-mph test. The T-Hybrid pips it with a tidy 3.1 seconds. Down in Little Hocking, we turn around and head north to do it all again, this time to truly take in the beauty of Route 555. The bridges that went unnoticed during the first run have our attention. The GTS sits low—full compression feels as though our cheeks might drag across the ground—and it now comes standard with the firmest of the 911’s suspension setups. It’s stiff, edging into the space occupied by a GT3 RS.view exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverPorsche offers a GTS-suspension-delete option that raises the ride height 0.4 inch and replaces the anti-roll bars with softer ones from the Carrera S. The two-position electronically controlled dampers remain but work with softer springs. Gone are the helper springs in the rear. For the bargain price of $0, these are ingredients that make for a more livable daily driver. The Triple Nickel is not just an awesome road itself but also a primary artery feeding equally delightful and even less-traveled secondary capillaries. We turn off onto the challenging State Route 676, a road full of elevation change, switchbacks, and corners so tight against farm homes that you can smell the rhubarb pie cooling on the sill. view exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverExclusive to the GTS (for now), active grille shutters help the car achieve a drag coefficient of 0.29. The hood creases are a nod to the 911’s air-cooled past. Then comes the highway slog back to Michigan, offering time to reflect on the GTS’s starting price, which has jumped to $166,895. Get a little carried away with all the performance goodies and a few other options, and expect to write a check for $200,000. That’s a lot of dough. You don’t have to write in to let us know that Chevy’s 1064-hp Corvette ZR1 doesn’t cost much more. We’re aware.VERDICT: A few no-cost options shy of perfection.Porsche’s newest GTS may be complex, but it’s a great machine. If you specify it without the badges, folks would never know it’s a hybrid. That’s how Porsche intended it and exactly how it should be. Surely, variants of this powertrain will find their way into other 911 models. When that happens, we know what road to take them to.
The Tech: E-DayWe knew it was coming. Electrification has come to the 911, and it’s not at all what we feared. Porsche isn’t trying to squeeze Toyota Prius fuel economy out of the 911; instead, it’s a hybrid system that’s about performance first and economy second.PorscheThe powertrain goes by T-Hybrid, or turbo-hybrid, and Porsche also tossed in a new flat-six that has grown from 3.0 to 3.6 liters. And despite its larger displacement, it’s more compact than the 3.0-liter. The A/C compressor is now driven by an electric motor, obviating the need for an accessory belt, and the water pump has moved into the engine. (We feel you, Porsche techs.) The engine is 4.3 inches shorter in height than the old 3.0-liter, creating space for the hybrid system’s electronic controls. A lighter crankshaft is fitted. Add it all up, and Porsche claims an approximately 40-pound weight loss.A single turbocharger now does the boosting, and it can stuff the intake with up to 26.1 psi. The turbo incorporates a 27-hp electric motor to spool it up to minimize lag and recover energy. There’s no wastegate, so any time there’s excess boost, the system uses the gases spinning the turbo to recoup energy. Recharging at wide-open throttle? Neat.Though the compression ratio and the peak boost pressure have increased, the 3.6-liter engine makes just five more horses than the 3.0-liter. The culprit? European regulations that call for engines to have perfect stoichiometry (air-fuel ratio) at all engine speeds and loads to minimize emissions.This complexity does return better fuel economy. By the EPA’s measuring stick, both the combined and highway ratings are up by a single mile per gallon.CounterpointsKey to a daily driver is comfort, and two tenets of comfort are sound and ride. Provided you don’t get a GT3 RS, Porsche 911s usually make great dailies. The GTS has a stunning powertrain that makes all the right noises and blends its electric assist invisibly, but it’s the sounds you don’t want to hear that are the problem. Those wide rear tires bring into the cabin heavy road noise that will have you reaching for the audio system’s volume knob and maybe some Advil. And on anything but fresh pavement, you’ll be tossed around by the standard Sport suspension, which drops the ride height and increases the spring rates. Porsche’s adaptive dampers (PASM) remain, but it’s all too stiff, even in the most supple setting. Fortunately, you can specify the regular suspension at no extra cost. Do it. There’s a reason Sport PASM has earned the nickname SPASM. —Tony QuirogaIf I didn’t know any better, I’d think Porsche had been building a hybrid 911 for the past 15 years. It’s rare that something feels this well sorted right off the rip, but the 911 GTS nailed its assignment on the very first try. The electric motor’s assistance really highlights the GT in the GTS name, providing blistering acceleration with seemingly no end. Hybrid elements add weight, sure, but Porsche cleverly hid that mass in some sort of shadow dimension, because the GTS feels as perky and agile as any other member of the family. If you were worried about the first hybrid 911, donʼt be. Things are only bound to become more ludicrous from here, and I mean that in the best possible way. —Andrew KrokThe GTS is a true dual-purpose car. In sea green—with bodywork devoid of outlandish scoops, vents, or wings—it blends into traffic as well as any 911. The only hint of its true nature might be the matte-black wheels, their split-spoke style reminiscent of those on the GT3. In city driving, the GTS is a subdued thing, mimicking a Toyota Prius. You’d hardly guess you’re in a car capable of reaching 60 mph in under three seconds and a top speed of nearly 200 mph. But with a turn of the mode knob on the steering wheel, the beast within awakens, and you can expect all the thrills of a GT3 without the look-at-me posturing of a track car on public roads. —Darin Johnson
SpecificationsSpecifications
2025 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS
Vehicle Type: rear-engine, rear-motor, rear-wheel-drive, 2-passenger, 2-door coupe
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $166,895/$182,895
Options: Premium package, $4600; 18-way adaptive sport seats, $3030; front-axle lift system, $2980; Shade Green Metallic paint, $2980; brake calipers in high-gloss black, $910; ventilated front seats, $840; Black and Limestone Beige leather, $430; 22-gallon fuel tank, $230.
POWERTRAIN
turbocharged and intercooled flat-6, 478 hp, 420 lb-ft + AC motor, 64 hp, 110 lb-ft (combined output: 532 hp, 449 lb-ft; 0.9-kWh lithium-ion battery pack)
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: struts/multilink
Brakes, F/R: 16.1-in vented, cross-drilled disc/15.0-in vented, cross-drilled disc
Tires: Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperSport R
F: 245/35ZR-20 (95Y) NA2
R: 315/30ZR-21 (105Y) NA2
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 96.5 in
Length: 179.3 in
Width: 72.9 in
Height: 51.0 in
Passenger Volume: 49 ft3
Front Trunk Volume: 5 ft3
Curb Weight: 3638 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 2.5 sec
100 mph: 6.1 sec
130 mph: 10.3 sec
1/4-Mile: 10.6 sec @ 131 mph
150 mph: 14.5 sec
Results above omit 1-ft rollout of 0.2 sec.
Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 3.1 sec
Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 2.0 sec
Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 2.5 sec
Top Speed (mfr claim): 194 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 140 ft
Braking, 100–0 mph: 275 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 1.07 g
Interior Sound
Idle: 54 dBA/9 sone
Full Throttle: 92 dBA
70-mph Cruising: 75 dBA/34 sone
C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 21 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
Combined/City/Highway: 19/17/23 mpg
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED
Source: caranddriver.com
