I'm with Lamb, an old man here. I was on my second vette when I first test drove Porsches. I started the test driving a couple of years ago with a 981 Cayman, which was sweet but didn't have the power of the vette, then tried out the 911 Carrera S, which I liked for handling and tight feel but didn't blow me away in comparison to the vette in terms of power (although ride and handling were superb). I decided to start at the top -- in late 2016, I ordered my 2017 911 Turbo S without ever having driven one, had ridiculously high expectations in terms of power and handling -- and the actual car exceeded them! I kept the vette at that time, then still unwilling to part with it. The power of the TTS was and is amazing, literally scary quick and fast, I didn't even attempt launch control until I was long past the break-in mileage. As I continued to experience the 911 and the better-priced but inferior quality of the vette (as well as the PITA removable roof) last year, I was emotionally moving towards 718 territory. When ordering for the 718 GTS was announced, I was 100% in. I pre-traded my vette on a 718 Boxster GTS, and wound up getting my dealer's first allocation. I took delivery April 5, and despite April having been a record-cold month, with many days too cold for the summer tires, I have over 1,500 miles on it and, once again, even at these ridiculous prices, Porsche has exceeded my expectations. I drive the 718 every chance I get, while the TTS often sits (and I had put 7,200 miles on it last year in 7 months). The 911 TTS and the 718 BGTS are two totally different cars -- and I love them each for their special qualities. The TTS is ridiculously powerful, and the PDK with the twin-turbo six performs like artificial intelligence at its finest. The 718 is raunchy, speaks, yells, rasps, snaps crackles and pops, is perfectly balanced, and feels as nimble as if it weighed 1,000 lbs less than it does. The experience in the 911 is one of "sweet mediated road feel", hard to describe, compared with the 718. The 718 provides a more visceral, traditional, old school sports car experience, less mediated between road and driver, yet the suspension has just enough comfortable support to let me know that it's there and I'm in good hands. If I had only the 718, I'd crave what the TTS has; when I had the TTS, I craved what the 718 has. Now I feel enormously lucky to be able to have both. Without having experienced this, I'd find it hard "objectively" to justify the outrageous cost of these two cars; having experienced it, I have no trouble at all understanding how and why nuts like us spend this kind of money on cars.
