Porsche 911 Carrera T 2023 Review

Slotting in between the base Carrera and sportier Carrera S when it comes to price and performance, the 2023 Porsche 911 Carrera T starts from $299,200 plus on-road costs.

Built off the entry-level Carrera (from $277,800 plus ORCs) and designed to be a more affordable sibling to the higher-end GTS (from $353,700), the Carrera T – short for ‘touring’ – is lighter and faster than its donor car, packing plenty of standard equipment and all the sporty bits you might want to add to a base 911 Carrera, boosting its value proposition as an affordable 911.

Affordable might seem a stretch but compared to its closest rivals, the Aston Martin Vantage (from $299,462), BMW M8 Competition (from $380,000) and Jaguar F-TYPE P575 R (from $283,020), the Carrera T certainly isn’t overly expensive.

Porsche has traditionally offered a tonne of pricey options for its cars and nothing has changed when it comes to the 2023 Porsche 911 Carrera T.

Our Python Green tester is fitted with $20,110 worth of accessories, including that special paint colour ($5700), contrasting Lizard Green interior pack ($4120) and tinted LED Matrix headlights ($1540).

Other options include active lane keeping and adaptive cruise control, active parking support, light design package, 18-way adaptive sports seats with memory, and ‘Porsche’ LED puddle lamps.

Our T’s as-tested price came out a smidge north of $320,000, before on-road costs are added.

Things you don’t have to pay extra for include staggered 20-inch (front) and 21-inch (rear) wheels, metallic grey exterior trim and side mirrors, dual-zone climate control, heated seats and a GT Sport leather-clad steering wheel.

It also rides 10mm closer to the ground compared to the regular Carrera, thanks to adaptive sports dampers, while weight-saving efforts include the fitment of a lightweight battery, lightweight and noise-insulated glass, and less sound-deadening material around the cabin.

The T also adds a proper sports exhaust with a modified silencer and a pair of oval-shaped black stainless-steel tips.

In Australia, the Carrera T comes standard as a 2+2-seater, but Porsche can perform a rear seat delete at no extra cost, should you wish.

Porsche covers every 911 with a three-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty, with service intervals set every 12 months or 15,000km.

We think most will forgive Porsche for not wanting to hand over a few 911s to ANCAP for crash-testing.

As such, the 2023 Porsche 911 Carrera T does not come with an official ANCAP safety rating. Even still, it’s about as safe as sports cars come.

Multiple airbags cover the front-row occupants, while Porsche Side Impact Protection (POSIP) means you get additional protection in the doors.

When the road’s wet, the 911 suggests you switch to ‘Wet’ mode, which sharpens the car’s stability control to prevent unwanted sliding, while a host of driver aids are fitted standard, including brake assist, lane assist, blind spot monitoring, and front and rear parking sensors.

The 2023 Porsche 911 Carrera T isn’t out to set a new benchmark when it comes to in-cabin technologies, but it does offer everything one needs, set out in a luxurious and uncomplicated manner.

Planted central in the dash is a 10.9-inch infotainment unit equipped with online navigation, wireless smartphone mirroring (for Apple and Android), digital radio and voice control.

The unit is responsive to touch and brings great graphics in a user-friendly interface.

A premium Bose surround-sound audio system delivers top-notch audio quality, no matter what you’re listening to.

The driver’s instrument cluster is a mix of old and new, with a large analogue tachometer planted between a pair of digital 7.0-inch displays. As you’d expect, it’s a real driver-focused set-up, with a rotary dial mounted on the steering wheel for easy-reach drive mode selection (Wet, Normal, Sport, Sport Plus and Individual).

More controls – including manual switches and knobs for the dual-zone climate control – sit below the infotainment unit, offering immediate access to rocker switches that’ll turn up the sports exhaust, stiffen the adaptive dampers or further down, shift to manual mode and take control with the shift paddles.

The 2023 Porsche 911 Carrera T is powered by the same boxer engine as the entry-level Carrera, which makes it the least powerful in the German marque’s 911 family.

But don’t let that fool you because the 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged six-cylinder boxer engine is still insanely good.

The rear-mounted flat-six sends its 283kW of power and 450Nm of torque straight to the rear wheels, doing its best work in the middling to high rev range.

Just like the base-level Carrera, the T delivers impressive performance, and while most enthusiasts will naturally gravitate to the manual gearbox, we can attest to the PDK’s wonderfully responsive shifts, seamless at any speed.

The claimed average fuel consumption rating for the 2023 Porsche 911 Carrera T differs depending on which transmission you pick.

Go for the seven-speed manual gearbox and average consumption is claimed at 9.9L/100km on a combined cycle. Meanwhile, the eight-speed PDK tested here (a no-cost option) is claimed to be slightly higher at 10.8L/100km.

On test, we saw an average of 12.5L/100km, pretty good considering we weren’t particularly moseying around town.

The 2023 Porsche 911 Carrera T feels utterly special from the moment you get behind the wheel.

On start-up, it doesn’t roar to life with quite as much pandemonium as the (similarly-priced) track-focused Porsche Cayman GT4 RS, but the Carrera T’s twin-turbo six certainly makes itself known.

That said, you don’t get a true sample of its delicious soundtrack until you hit the road, because revs are electronically limited when stationary. Probably a good thing.

The 911 has been the benchmark sports car for years, but to the uninitiated you’d hardly believe this is an ‘entry-level’ machine. How much better can it get?

The grunt, the speed, the grip.

Even despite its impressive 0-100km/h sprint time of 4.0sec flat (4.5sec for the seven-speed manual), it doesn’t rip off the line painfully quickly. But building speed is this thing’s specialty, and before you know it, incredible mid-range pull has you hitting offensive speeds.

Riding a little lower and leaner than the base Carrera, the T’s adaptive sports suspension can make it feel a little more firm, particularly on rougher roads, but it’s a small price to pay in our opinion.

You can fling it into fast corners with nothing but confidence that its staggered 20-/21-inch rims wrapped in Goodyear rubber will get you out the other side.

Everything feels like it was designed purely for driver enjoyment because it was. It nails the brief to a T.

Inside the 2023 Porsche 911 Carrera T you’ll find a suitably pared-back and thoughtfully designed interior, with high-quality materials throughout.

The fabric (with partial leather) seats in the Carrera T are a welcome alternative to full-leather trim, particularly coming into the Aussie summer, offering generous cushioning and support, contrasted by bright lime green stitching and seat belts.

It’s a cabin in which you could easily spend hours at the wheel, which is exactly what Porsche wants you to do with this tourer.

Four-way electric seats and a steering wheel with tilt and reach adjustment provide the ideal driving position for almost anyone, particularly those who enjoy a low-slung seating position.

Key controls are placed within easy reach of the driver, and although a small cruise control stalk attached to the left side of the steering wheel is a little fiddly to operate at first, shortcut buttons on the steering wheel are small but useful.

But the same can’t be said for the second row, which is borderline unusable, even for small children, who won’t be able to see much more than the back of the front seats. It’s a space best utilised by a handbag or small dog.

Under the bonnet is a 132-litre luggage compartment that’s surprisingly useful. It can swallow a full-sized suitcase (but nothing else), or several bags of groceries.

Absolutely yes.

It’s not the most hard-core 911 money can buy. In fact, it’s far from it. But the 2023 Porsche 911 Carrera T is a fantastic entry-level 911 that feels anything but ‘entry-level’.

It’s exceptionally brilliant to drive, quick enough to give most rev-heads their kick and comes fitted with all the equipment you’d expect your $300K sports tourer to have.

2023 Porsche 911 Carrera T at a glance:
Price: $299,200 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder twin-turbo petrol
Output: 283kW/450Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel: 10.8L/100km (WLTP)
CO2: 246g/km (WLTP)
Safety rating: Not tested