Little to complain about the new Porsche 911 – except its waist-cinching seats

I’m not a supermodel. Nor, however, am I a burger-laden fat boy, hence today’s memo to Dr Ferdinand Porsche: what’s with the waist-cinching seats in the new Porsche 911 Carrera S, Ferdy?

Perhaps German posteriors have slimmed (unlikely) since Ferdy first took a spanner to a slotted hex washer. But anyway, on the climb in, the bucket front seats in the new 911 seem kidney compromising to the extent that you believe your enjoyment of this thoroughbred beast may be in jeopardy.

Okay, so anyone used to doing all their motoring in a 14-year-old clunker is likely to find, when tossed the keys to wheeled lightning, that seat design has moved on with the rest of the world – not least in cars that have rallying pretensions. But “Are you sitting comfortably?” shouldn’t be a rhetorical question in a HK$2.46 million example of Stuttgart’s finest work.

And that’s pretty much it, rant almost over, because there’s little else about which to complain in this latest iteration of a car that has been in continual development since 1963. The last five years have given us 911s big on “intelligent lightweight construction”, which translates as “lots of aluminium” and otherwise it’s as you were – from the outside not a great deal appears to have changed recently.

Step around the back, however, and the 420hp Carrera is now turbocharged, its twin boosters giving the flat-six, three-litre (down from 3.4 litres) fuel-injected Boxer engine vital statistics of zero to 100km/h in 3.7 seconds and a top speed of 307km/h. Redesigned air intakes, Porsche’s Active Suspension Management system, light alloy wheels, anti-roll control and of course a retractable, wing-inspired rear spoiler all ensure the Carrera S retains its racetrack pedigree – as does its throaty growl up to the redline at 7,500rpm.

Did we say HK$2.46 million? Don’t worry: that includes optional extras such as a front-axle lift system should you feel the urge to mount a kerb, rear-axle steering, parking-assist cameras, adaptive sports seats, Bose sound system and more. Trunk space doesn’t permit much beyond a couple of small suitcases, but if your choice of steed is a Carrera, your day job is hardly likely to be captain of a semi-mobile, wartime pillbox known as the “people carrier”.