We Drove the 2026 Porsche 911 Turbo S, and It’s Electrified, Unhinged, and Brilliant

Regardless of your personal opinions about fully electric, hybrid, and internal combustion cars and the philosophical battle being waged for the automobile’s soul, it’s difficult to deny these are fascinating times for enthusiasts. “Strange” is perhaps more accurate, especially in the performance realm where EVs have turned more than a few traditional metrics on their heads—or at least consigned them to a heap labeled “everything is relative.”

Take Porsche, for instance. Its 1,019-hp Taycan Turbo GT Weissach electric sedan seven months ago set the all-time MotorTrend 0–60-mph record with a head-spinning, lunch-upchucking time of 1.89 seconds (since edged by the Lucid Air Sapphire, another EV). The company’s benchmark power and acceleration figures for decades were those of the 911 Turbo and then Turbo S, but you’re forgiven if that model isn’t automatically the first one you think of anymore when shooting the shit with your car-geek friends about the single most badass Stuttgart offering you wish resided in your garage. EVs aren’t the only things that have clouded the picture. Porsche’s never-ending proliferation of 911 variants including special editions and racetrack-honed GT models has contributed to the erosion of what was once the Turbo S’ clear status atop the pyramid. The new 2026 Porsche 911 Turbo S goes a long way toward at least putting itself smack back into the conversation.

Level Up

The turbocharged flat-six engine is always the pièce de résistance when it comes to 911 Turbo lore, and in the case of the new 992.2-generation Turbo S, it’s of course the heart of what is far and away the most technologically advanced powertrain in the model’s 50-plus-year history. In the name of historical accuracy, that’s 50 years of the standard 911 Turbo; the first Turbo S was born in 1992 for the 964-generation 911.

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In this case, the combustion engine is the same unit found in the 992.2 Carrera GTS T-Hybrid that went on sale a year ago, with its 3.6 liters of displacement falling just shy of the previous Turbo S’ 3.7-liter non-electrified engine. The slight difference is a result of Porsche using 5-millimeter-smaller bore diameters (now 97 mm) and a longer stroke of 81 mm (a 4.6-millimeter increase).

Mechanically, this engine—known at Porsche as the 9A3—boasts bigger ventilation chambers and stronger roller cam followers than the previous 992.1 Turbo S. The block and crankcase are the same as the new GTS T-Hybrid’s; only the pistons are unique, owing to a different shape desirable for the Turbo S’ 9.2:1 compression ratio versus the GTS’ 10.2:1. The piston castings are the same, but the machining differs, and both cars use the same fuel injectors found in the old 911 Turbo and Turbo S. The new S also boasts its own intake and dual-flow titanium exhaust system, the latter of which looks better with its optional oval tips rather than the new square design that comes standard.

Visually striking when viewing the previous Turbo S engine side by side with the new one, the latter is 6.7 inches lower overall—not in terms of its mounting in the car but in sheer physical height. This makes room for packaging the hybrid system’s electronics on top and is due in part to the new crankcase design. More significant, it’s thanks to the removal of the accessory belt-drive pieces. Instead of that traditional solution, the water pump is now located inside the engine (driven internally via the oil pumps and accessible for service, if you wondered, by dropping the oil pan), and an electric motor-generator unit inside the dual-clutch gearbox casing (same as in the GTS) functions as the starter motor. The car’s 400-volt electrical system runs things like the air conditioning compressor.

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We’ve already taken a deep dive into how the hybrid system works in the GTS, and the 2026 Porsche 911 Turbo S uses the same 1.9-kWh high-voltage battery that sits above the front axle where standard 911’s house their conventional battery. It also provides juice for starting the car, as well as for the standard Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control. A rear-located 12-volt lithium-iron-phosphate battery powers low-voltage items like the dashboard display, interior lights, and the optional front-end lift system ($3,090). As for the permanent-magnet synchronous electric motor within the transmission housing, it provides 139 lb-ft of torque and up to 80 horsepower. That’s 29 lb-ft and 26 hp more than in the 911 Carrera GTS.

The 911 Turbo S’ high-voltage battery powers the car’s two electric turbos (the GTS features a single electric turbo), providing off-throttle preload to virtually eliminate turbo lag, and those turbos are smaller in overall diameter with smaller turbines and compressors than the GTS’ single unit. With less rotating inertia, they spin faster than the GTS’ turbo, at 145,000 rpm versus 120,000 rpm. Peak boost pressure is 26.1 psi compared to 18.9 in the GTS. And because there is no wastegate, the turbos' motors recover excess energy that would otherwise grenade the turbos and send it to the high-voltage battery. In fast-driving situations where the battery is fully charged—say at high speed with the engine revving past 5,000 rpm—the energy goes back into the drivetrain via the permanent-magnet motor.

All told, the 2026 Porsche 911 Turbo S makes 701 hp at 6,500 rpm and 590 lb-ft at 6,000 rpm, with the rev-limiter activating at 7,500 rpm. That’s an increase of 60 hp compared to the previous Turbo S, while torque remains the same to ensure the transmission’s reliability, though some of the gears are strengthened to handle the overall greater loads. (The gear ratios and final drive are the same as found in the GTS T-Hybrid and in the 992.1 Turbo.) For reference, the hybrid GTS makes peak figures of 532 hp and 449 lb-ft. Fun factoid for Porsche nerds you won’t find in promotional or media-kit materials: The development team originally targeted a horsepower figure of 710 pferdestarke (PS) but goosed it to 711, the same number used for Stuttgart’s area code.

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The Initial Hit

Our drive began on roads in Spain’s Andalusia region with a Turbo S Cabriolet, and it didn’t take long to feel the results of Porsche’s labor. A standing start using launch control—stand on the brake and throttle pedals simultaneously, wait for the revs to stabilize, and dump the brake—is a genuine skull-banging (off the seat’s headrest) experience. Soon after, we encountered a mild compression in the road and involuntarily uttered a sound approximating “nhhuuuugh” as the car ripped over it, the combination of vertical g as the suspension rebounded and longitudinal g under full power causing a serious case of stomach float.

Porsche says the Turbo S coupe will hit 60 mph in 2.4 seconds, the Cabriolet in 2.5. Years of MotorTrend track-testing results tell us Porsche is always conservative with its official claims, so we expect to record numbers in the 2.2–2.3-second range, perhaps even quicker. After all, our most recent test of a 992.1 Turbo S coupe returned a 2.3-second 60-mph time (Porsche said it needed 2.6); the Cabriolet did it in 2.4. To illustrate the gain made with the 992.2 Turbo S, company representatives presented an animated video that showed the coupe nearly two car lengths ahead of the 992.1 version after just 2.5 seconds elapsed from a standing start. That’s a massive advantage. Update: We subsequently put a new Turbo S through MotorTrend’s independent testing regimen, and indeed it clocked a 2.2-second 0–60-mph time.

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Of course, with all the electric hardware the new hybrid Turbo S coupe and Cab are heavier than the cars they replace—we weighed the old coupe at 3,628 pounds, the drop-top at 3,804. Porsche says the new coupe comes in at 3,803 pounds and the convertible at 3,990, but we need to weigh them ourselves to verify the reality. Update: The 911 Turbo S coupe registered 3,820 pounds on our scales. That’s Corvette ZR-1 territory, but welcome to the modern world where almost all cars have become beyond portly. The positive news is neither of these Turbo S offerings feels ungainly even when you’re giving them everything a moderately sane person with any sense of self-preservation is willing to do on even the most fun of fun public roads. We found the convertible to perhaps feel ever so slightly less responsive than the coupe, but certainly nowhere approaching enough to dissuade open-top fans from choosing it, if that’s your thing. Porsche expects about 65 percent of Turbo S buyers to opt for the coupe, however.

Speaking of buyers, they should be aware Porsche offers a PASM Sport suspension package that ups the stiffness over the standard PASM setup, and it would be our choice if only because it lowers the body nearly half an inch, eating up some of the unsightly gap between the fender walls and tire tops, and making the car look better and meaner. The standard spring and damper rates are revised compared to the old Turbo S to deal with the new car's additional weight, and they provide a sublime balance of ride quality and daily-driver cornering ability. The Sport option merely ups the aggressiveness to a level you notice in certain conditions such as broken pavement and consistently bumpy roads, but it's not overly hardcore. Remember, this is no GT-division product.

Hit It Even Harder

For our money—and at starting prices of $273,300 (coupe) and $284,300 (Cabriolet), we’d need a lot of it—we’re taking the coupe every time, both for its more cohesive looks and the admittedly extremely marginally better performance. A fixed roof also is much preferable for the odd track-day outing, another scenario wherein Porsche demonstrated the car’s capabilities.

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Lapping the long, fast, and extremely challenging Ascari road course near Ronda, Spain, for starters, we were thankful for the 2026 Porsche 911 Turbo S’ larger carbon-ceramic brake package. The front discs measure the same 16.5 inches as previously, but the rear rotors are now 16.1 inches, nearly 1.2 inches larger than before. This is the largest all-around brake package ever installed on a production 911, and the bigger rears are there to deal with the increased speed and weight. In fact, the new Turbo S’ top speed of 200 mph is 5 mph shy of the old car’s, but the engineers say this is simply due to the stock tire pressures they elected for a nice mix of ride quality and cornering performance. Speaking of the tires, the rears now measure an even more massive 325 (up from 315)/30R21, the fronts the same 255/35R20 as in the past.

All of this, along with the standard active roll-countering Dynamic Chassis Control, Torque Vectoring Plus, rear-wheel steering, all-wheel drive (capable of sending up to 368 lb-ft of torque to the front axle), and steering that’s weighted just right for our taste, makes the new Turbo S entirely competent on the track, dispatching the straights so quickly and at such speeds that we failed to actually look at the speedometer to see precisely how fast, such was our need to concentrate immediately for the next braking zone and corner entry. Despite the car’s heft, the brakes never blinked, and you can use them to generate turn-in rotation without fear of the back end saying “adios, sucker,” though remember to at least put the PSM traction/stability control to its Sport setting. (We were reminded of this the hard way when we forgot to do so and saw other cars walking away from us coming off the corners.)

Keeping in mind this isn’t truly intended as a track car, any driver who intends to put it to such use won’t be disappointed in the sheer fun on offer, certainly more so than the old model. The leap forward in raw speed into and out of corners unlocks an entirely new and more dramatic experience, yet there is plenty of grip from the stable chassis to provide a reasonable safety net when you make a mistake.

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For skilled drivers, it’s also just plain, good old hooliganish fun, as we experienced firsthand riding shotgun around Ascari with Porsche factory racer Timo Bernhard, who demonstrated just how much speed you can carry, how late you can brake, and how driftedly unhinged sideways the Turbo S can be driven through corner after corner. We’ve covered a lot of laps over the years riding next to pro drivers, and this one was right at the top of the “well, damn!” list.

That said, if outright serious lap times are your bag, this isn’t your stallion because it’s not an ultimate-grip or “aero” car in the vein of, say, a GT3 let alone a GT3 RS. Or even one of the 718 GT offerings. Sure, it has an active rear wing that raises and lowers automatically, as well as a new front diffuser with variable flaps, but the latter help mostly to keep water off the brakes in wet conditions. A nice feature to be sure, but even with the optional aero kit that adds front winglets and curved edges to the rear wing’s main plane, Porsche told us that at top speed in Sport mode the downforce measures something like 93 pounds at the front and 243 at the rear. That’s better than nothing, but it’s not much, and again, those figures are at top speed and will be far lower at more common velocities, even on racetracks.

Hey, though, if you’re really into chasing performance, be sure to order the optional carbon-fiber windshield-wiper arms ($1,310) that save 1.3 pounds compared to their standard counterparts. That’s a feature we can only recall ever seeing before on Bugatti’s Chiron. Are they worth the hefty asking price? Even Porsche executives giggle about this, but when you’re talking about cars that are purchased as much for flash and prestige as they are for actual high-performance driving, it’ll probably become a must-have item among the Turbo S set. Pity the new owner who shows up at Cars and Coffee without them.

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What Else?

There are plenty of other details you can discover in the photos here and via Porsche’s online configurator, such as gray Turbonite trim and Porsche crests, carbon-fiber interior pieces with Neodyme-colored thread woven within it, and the like. What should matter more to performance car fans and enthusiasts is that the 2026 Porsche 911 Turbo S delivers ungodly acceleration, speed, and drivability, to the point it’s simultaneously a great GT-like Sunday cruiser and a devastating performer that’s nowhere near as clinical as its on-paper technical profile might suggest.

Lest there are still nonbelievers out there, know that the hybrid powertrain operates seamlessly; like the GTS T-Hybrid, you’d never know this car is electrified merely from the driving experience, something you can’t say about even the quickest and fastest EVs. It’s undeniably a benchmark-level all-arounder/supercar despite still not being the quickest automobile Porsche makes, but we’re at a point in Car Land where you must ask: Can anything other than a timing system truly discern the difference between something like the Taycan Turbo GT Weissach’s 1.89-second 0–60 time and this 911’s low-2-second mark? Frankly, cars like this are all too quick, too fast, and absolutely overkill for 99-point-something percent of drivers who aren’t professional-level racers. And that’s why they’re discussed, dissected, debated, even flat-out argued about. And lusted after. This one is absolutely worthy of it all, whatever conclusion you come to.