Published:
19 August 2015The RS’s hard-edged cabin is based on that of the GT3, with elements of 918 Spyder thrown in for good measure.
The result, assembled like a Swiss watch movement, manages to convey track-hardened purpose and a machined sense of material extravagance as well as anything being made by McLaren or Ferrari.
Aside from RS-specific details, such as fabric door pulls, much of it is familiar; the black-clad centre console spine, dashboard and superb part-TFT instrument cluster are all standard 991 carryovers. Everything clicks and clacks as though it were installed by stonemasons and is studiously functional, even allowing for the large number of buttons corralled into one spot.
The RS’s new features, chiefly those plundered from Porsche’s hypercar, are typically the objects that stand out – not least because you hold on to one and sit on the other. The steering wheel, perfectly proportioned and clad in Alcantara, would make a minibus feel sporty and is flanked by cold-to-the-touch paddle shifters that have had some of their travel dialled out of them.
It is the seats, though, that take the proverbial biscuit. Constructed from carbonfibre and decked out in leather and trouser-clutching microfibres, the fixed-back buckets pull off that rare trick of being both fabulously handsome and comfortable while simultaneously not relenting one shred of body core support when it really counts.
