2015 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS: The Sweetest 911 Package?

It’s clear that there’s a difference in driving personality between AWD and RWD editions of the GTS that reveals itself most distinctly on a road course.

You can also get the Carrera GTS in cabriolet form.

According to Stuttgart it’s intended to occupy the no-man’s land that exists between the Carrera S and the competition-inspired 911 GT3.

It’s a drama-free on-track narrative that indicates just how far the Porsche 911’s chassis tuning has come.

The 911 Carrera GTS offers a more powerful version of the 911 formula that doesn’t sacrifice day-to-day comfort in the pursuit of performance.

The GTS cab was perfectly willing to snake through canyon twists and turns very much too fast.

The 2015 model’s engine output is a mere five horses down on the last-gen GT3, and it also happens to be the mightiest rear-wheel drive coupe Porsche offers with a manual transmission lurking on the order sheet.

The reason I’m at Willow Springs is to try to determine whether the GTS package is a next-step or step-over for performance-hungry Porsche fans.

Willow Springs International Raceway provided the venue for my track-testing in the Carrera GTS.

It’s a question of combining hotter performance with better packaging.

While the reduced chassis stiffness compared to the coupe was immediately noticeable at Willow Springs, on the ride back to Pasadena it was almost completely imperceptible.

Regardless of whether you order the Carrera 4 GTS with its all-wheel drive system or the standard rear-wheel drive Carrera GTS you get the same swollen haunches and wider track at the rear of the car.

X-ray the GTS mill’s intake and you’ll discover what Porsche calls a ‘variable resonance induction system.'

You get Alcantara leather seats and a leather interior as standard equipment.

Some will have to think long and hard about whether the incremental performance gains of the Carrera GTS over the Carrera S are worth paying so much for.

There's an $18k price differential between the Carrera S and the Carrera GTS.

The GTS trim bundles together a number of options that one would have to pay extra for with the Carrera S.

The new intake, revised intake valves, and more aggressive exhaust tuning have yielded an additional 30 horsepower over the S model’s 400 ponies.

Porsche claims a 0-100 km/h time of four seconds.

Stirring the pot are your choice of either a seven-speed manual or seven-speed PDK dual-clutch automated manual transmission.