How does one begin to describe a car like the Porsche 911 Turbo? Maybe in terms of all the contradictions it embodies.

It's one of the quickest and fastest cars you can buy, and yet it shares its basic architecture with the lowly VW Beetle. It's one of the best handling performance cars there is, although much of its weight is hung out aft of the rear wheels. It is a very comfortable tool with which to explore the outer limits of performance, and yet its ergonomics are not exactly optimum. Kids just about fall out of their cars or off the sidewalk at the sight of it, even though its basic shape has been a part of the automotive landscape for a third of a century. It's as easy to drive at 250 kph as it is at 50.

The 911 Turbo is surely one of the more intriguing cars on the market, and despite all the contradictions, its bottom line is pure performance. This car delivers in all the ways you'd expect of a premium sports/GT car, and some you'd never expect of it.

Lets get the numbers out of the way first. 400 horsepower. 400 foot-pounds of torque. 1,500 kg. 0-100 kph in 4 seconds or so. 0-160-0 in 12 seconds. Top end of 290. The 911 Turbo takes a backseat to nothing short of the hyper-exotics with that sort of performance. Its acceleration is fierce.

Its braking phenomenal.

Its handling confidence-inspiring. There are reasons.

The engine is, no surprise, an air-cooled flat-six. It even still has but 12 valves and single overhead cams. But decades of development on road and track have resulted in an engine that is the picture of flexibility and usable power. It's not peaky, there's no turbo lag to bother you, it'll pull from 1,000 rpm in any gear, and it'll pin your ears back at full throttle in any gear but sixth.

Putting all that power to the ground is a very sophisticated viscous all-wheel drive system that is half the weight of the previous mechanical system, and more efficient, too. Running in silicone fluid, it responds to power, rpm and temperature differences to vary the amount of slip between the front and rear axles.

Combine that with a locking rear differential and an Automatic Brake Differential that uses the brakes to stop a spinning rear wheel, and you get maximum traction under nearly all conditions, subject to the grip available to the super 18-inch Bridgestone Expedia S-02 tires.

Said tires are mounted on new hollow-spoke aluminum wheels that reduce unsprung weight by some 20 percent. And they allow admirers to get a good look at the bright red four-piston calipers and massive cross-drilled rotors that will take any abuse you can throw at them, and ask for more. Truly astounding brakes, these.

None of this would mean much if the 911 Turbo still had the tricky, old-style semi-trailing arm rear suspension of the previous generation Turbo, but of course, it has the all-new multi-link subframe-mounted design introduced on ordinary 911's last year. The front end retains the old MacPherson strut set-up, but it all works well; the grip is prodigious, and the driver who lifts in the middle of a fast corner will probably avoid backing the Turbo into something immovable. As for ride comfort, well, who really cares, anyway?

And we have to assume that 911 owners don't really mind, either, that the interior architecture hasn't changed since the first one rolled off the line in Zuffenhausen. The seats are great, of course, multi-adjustable and supportive, and everything is top-notch, as expected. At first grip, the fixed steering wheel feels a bit distant from you, but in spirited driving, it becomes alright. The big tach dominates the center of the instruments; most of the rest, including the speedo above 120 kph, are blocked by the steering wheel. As are the HVAC controls to the right and the ignition key to the left of the steering wheel. Altogether, not great, but as Porsche says, their customers don't seem to mind.

Must be something about what a fantastic performance car the 911 Turbo is.

And it achieves that level of performance almost despite itself. Dr. Ferdinand would approve, I think.

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