The 2005 Porsche 911 Carrera and Carrera S interior has been redesigned from the base of the windshield to the rear jump seats, with new steering wheels, seats, gauges, switches and climate control, and the introduction of head-protecting curtain airbags. Such thorough overhauls are expensive, and rare from a small automaker like Porsche. Nonetheless, after some seat time in the new 911, drivers who are familiar with Porsche will realize just how significant the improvement is.

In a sense, the 2005 911's cockpit shares its basic theme (and look) with the 2004. It's a down-to-business place designed for serious driving. Nor was the previous 911's interior bad. This car's seating position has long been perfect for most enthusiast drivers, with outstanding visibility in all directions compared to some other high-performance sports cars. Perhaps surprisingly to drivers new to the 911, it has also been a truly comfortable car for traveling long distances. The new design will feel familiar to those who have owned a 911, and the ignition key remains on the left, as it's always been on Porsche's LeMans race cars. Yet beyond functional improvements for 2005, this may be the best Porsche interior yet.
In general, there's an improvement in the quality of materials, and specifically, in the feel of plastic surfaces. The 911 still isn't quite up to snuff with the best luxury sedans in its price range, but it now comes much closer to what the average consumer (and not just the Porsche geek) expects for the money. You no longer have to spring for the full leather interior, or those special options like the Leather Dome Lamp Cover, to get an interior finish that matches the car's overall quality.

The obvious changes inside the 2005 911 start with the steering wheel. It has a new, more contemporary three-spoke design, and its leather-wrapped rim is thicker and grippier than ever. As it often is at Porsche, there's more going on here than meets the eye. The steering wheel's core structure is an expensive magnesium alloy, which weighs less than the old steel/aluminum structure. More significantly, the wheel adjusts both up and down and fore and aft for the first time (albeit manually). This is also the first 911 to offer redundant controls on the steering wheel hub that operated the audio and navigation systems or the optional telephone.

The 2005 911 Carreras also feel a bit roomier than their predecessors, and we suspect more comfortable for larger drivers. The difference is a combination of small things, like the adjustable wheel and a slight repositioning of the pedals toward the front of the car. The front seats, already among the best going, have been redesigned. They have higher bolstering on the bottoms and back, but they actually feel roomier. The width of both cushions seems to have increased, especially near the top of the back around the shoulders. The seats are mounted lower to the floor, creating a bit more headroom.
The optional sports seats in our Carrera S test car were fantastic. They are more aggressively bolstered than the standard seats, and a bit firmer under bottom. Still, they remained supremely comfortable during a three-hour stretch at the wheel.

The gauges are spread in a larger pod than before, and the faces themselves are larger. The script and backlighting make them as legible as ever, but the extra space between them makes absorbing the information displayed a little less tedious. The dash vents are larger, too. Beyond the vents, we're not sure what Porsche did to the climate system, but it clearly moves more air at full bore than it did previously. The climate controls are located in the center stack. From an aesthetic point of view, they're the least appealing part of the new interior, but functionally they work fine.

The 2005 911's slickest new option could be the Sport Chrono Package. It's most obvious component is almost glaring to anyone familiar with this car: a jewel-like chronograph sprouting from the center of the dash. Flick a switch on the dash, then start or stop the chronograph with a switch on one of the steering wheel stalks, and it will display acceleration or lap times. What you don't see are the adjustments in electronic controls that occur when the chrono is switched on. The electronic throttle switches to its most aggressive mode (meaning the most gas for a given amount of pedal application), and the anti-skid electronics give the driver a lot more rope to get into trouble with. A history of recorded times can be displayed on the nav system screen for comparison. A gimmick? Maybe, but if you plan on participating in one of the Porsche Club of America's track meets, you'll want it.

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Porsche's recent improvement to its audio systems, long anemic compared to the best car stereos, continues with the new 911. The upgrade high-power Bose package is now above average, and more competitive with the best in luxury cars.

The new 911 also provides more space to put stuff. Both the glovebox and center-console bin are noticeably larger than before. The glove box now includes storage slots for pens and couple of CDs, while the console has a change holder and an additional 12-volt power point. Porsche claims the front boot is larger than before (4.72 cubic feet), though we notice no practical improvement in its storage capacity.

In total, the 911 is a comfortable (not to mention satisfying and fun) car for soaking up the miles, and reasonably well suited for commuting or daily driving. The improvements for 2005 only emphasize this. Nonetheless, we offer a warning to the uninitiated: This is not a minivan! The rear seats are not fit for human consumption for passengers beyond 9 or 10 years old. With the rear seats folded, there's plenty of room for a major grocery run, and you can lay the dry cleaning back there. That said, while you might enjoy driving the 911 from one end of the country to the other, you won't be able to stay long when you get there, unless you're willing to do laundry frequently. You probably won't want to take the Carrera to pick someone up at the airport, either. The trunk will hold maybe two smallish duffel bags; a Chevy Corvette will allow you to take more. There is a truly useful roof transport system ($400) that allows the 911 coupes to carry lumber and other bulky items. But a couple of trunks on the roof of a 911 screaming past on the Interstate sort of ruin the picture. And who's going to take time to mess with strapping suitcases on top of the car?

For now, shoppers considering a 911 will have a unique opportunity to judge the value of improvements inside the Carrera and Carrera S. The 2005 911 Turbo and Turbo S Cabriolet are still built on the old 911 platform, and their interiors are virtually identical to the 2004 models, without the new dash, seats, etc. Just be aware that the Turbo upgrade includes full leather interior and other amenities not included on the Carreras, so it won't be an apples-to-apples comparison.

In a word, the Porsche 911 is thrilling. Its overall performance is extraordinary. All variants accelerate with the verve of a motorbike and turn or stop on a dime, all the while behaving in smooth, civilized fashion for the more mundane demands of daily motoring. Yet for 2005, it's the heavily revised Carrera models that benefit from what we like to call de-evolution. They feed information back to the driver just a little more clearly and react to commands a nanosecond sooner. They also retain the wash-and-wear quality that has made the 911 a relatively easy car to live with everyday.

The standard Carrera is powered by a revised version of Porsche's familiar 3.6-liter, horizontally opposed six cylinder, otherwise known as the "boxer'' engine for the way its pistons punch outward. This boxer employs the latest materials technology, a race-car style dry sump lubrication system and a refined version of Porsche's VarioCam variable valve timing. Horsepower increases by 10 from 2004, to a peak of 325. (Peak torque remains 273 pound-feet.) Yet the updated engine is lighter, with lower fuel consumption at a given rpm and fewer exhaust emissions. Our test car was a Carrera S with a new, slightly larger version of the boxer engine. The extra 200cc in the Carrera S's 3.8-liter six pay off in a substantial increase of 30 horsepower for a total of 355 and 22 pound-feet of torque for a total of 295. Even before the improvements, the 911's engine was one of the most tractable found in a sports car. The improved engines in the 2005 Carreras take this outstanding balance to new heights.
Gearheads aside, most consumers care less about specific technologies or how they work and more about what those technologies do. Anyone with a bit of experience in a wide array of cars will grasp the benefit of VarioCam. Ten years ago, high performance engines required more significant trade offs. Build them with good low-end power so they made the car jump with authority from a start and they would likely run out steam at higher rpm, coughing and wheezing as they approached the redline on the tachometer. Build them to spin like a turbine at higher revs, breathing like a sprinter and building velocity through the higher range, and they were likely anemic off the line. Variable valve timing allows engineers to better achieve the best of both worlds: good low end, free high-rev breathing. The 2005 Carrera engines deliver this combination better than just about any on the market.

Acceleration? We easily managed 0-60 mph runs under 4.5 seconds, measured with a portable, over-the-counter accelerometer. That's easily half a second quicker than a car like Audi's S4, which happens to be one of most capable, potent high-performance luxury sedans you can buy. In automotive terms you can do a lot in half a second. We couldn't legally measure the Carrera S's 0-100 mph times, of course, but we're quite sure that a Porsche driver could get to 100 with enough time to slam on the brakes, stop, and wave as the S4 went by.
Regardless, the figures only hint at the satisfaction a driver can find in the 911's engine. The real draw lies in that tractability. Slam the 911's gas pedal at any road or engine speed, and the response is immediate, not to mention enormous. There's more speed available in just about any situation, rumbling up through the driver's backside and into the belly. We wanted to floor it every time we tracked through a turn and let the engine wind to its 7300-rpm redline, just to feel the acceleration and listen to the unmistakable rasp of a Porsche boxer engine (the best one yet). Anyone with a pulse should appreciate the visceral exhilaration built into the 911.

The best thing is that acceleration is only one component of the 911's impressive performance act. Porsche's engineers devoted significant energy to trimming the 2005 Carrera's weight in an effort to compensate for new, weight-increasing equipment like head-protection airbags. The steering system, suspension and attachment points have been redesigned with sturdier, lighter components, reducing what the engineers call unsprung weight. The Carrera's track has been widened for more lateral stability. In total, the changes make what was already one of the nimblest, most responsive cars on the road more so.