It Works
WERKS’ 997 TURBO-BASED K1 IS UNBELIEVABLY GOOD. BELIEVE IT
STORY AND PHOTOS BY PETE STOUT
The windows are down. Outside, the scenery is blurred. The noise from the back of the 911 is no song. It’s not the pretty music of a GT3, with harmonic highs and throaty tips. It’s not the song of horsepower. No, it’s the sound of torque, learing through the atmosphere’s canvas, echoing off the trees.
Few 911s and even fewer turbocharged 911s, offer a soundtrack as scintillating or a powerband as electric. The turbo six’s thrust is epic, its wave of torque endless, always accessible. Second gear straightens your spine in the carbon-fiber seat shell. It’s the kind of brutal acceleration that heightens all of your senses. Gear to gear, turbo lag is minimal as the 3.6 six breathes deeply and shoves the K1 forward.
But there appears to be more to this modified 997 Turbo than a great motor. Leaving the first section of Excellence’s South Test Loop and heading into its most challenging set of turns-turns riddled with bumps, elevation changes, and varied surfaces that separate merely good suspension setups from brilliant ones-first impressions are good. So good, in fact, that the K1 may be the best modern Porsche we’ve driven here in years. If so, that would put a heavy 997 Turbo ahead of the 997 GT3 and RS, two 911s that are handling specialists if nothing else. But a Turbo can’t be that fun, can it? Can it?