Photos

February 2011, South Africa. Amid such secrecy that we can talk about it only now, Top Gear climbs into a car that looks very much like a 911. Even though the body and chassis are all-new, you wouldn't know it at a glance. But then when did a new 911 ever look much different from the old? Not since ever. This one sounds the same too. Again, no surprise, given its flat-six isn't vastly modified from what today's retiring 911s have.

Then we arrive at a road that curls its way up some emphatically three-dimensional landscape, and suddenly this machine doesn't feel like a 911 at all.

Words: Paul Horrell
Photos: James Lipman