2012 Porsche Carrera & Carrera S Cabriolet revealed

2012 Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet

It’s only five minutes since the 2012 Porsche 911 arrived – well, Frankfurt in September – but already we’ve got the reveal of the 2012 Porsche 911 Cabriolet in Carrera and Carrera S guises, ahead of a debut at Detroit in January 2012.

The stand-out feature of the 911 Cabrio – over and above the stand out features of the 2012 911 – is its new trick folding soft-top.

Porsche has designed a new folding roof for the 2012 Cabriolet, which features a fabric-skinned composite panel for the top and back bits of the roof and magnesium in the frame, giving a much smoother appearance than a traditional folding roof. In fact, Porsche say, the roof of the 911 Cabriolet, when raised, ‘ …ensures the iconic 911 roof line is retained in its entirety’.

The new roof – which gets more traditional fabric on the sides – takes just 11 seconds to raise or lower and can be put up or down at speeds up to 37mph. The new roof design – a Porsche patented design – will also feature on the new Boxster.

Elsewhere the 911 Cabriolet is much the same as its coupe sibling. The longer wheelbase with wider front track and electro-mechanical steering offer more agility and better dynamics and lower weight – even in the Cabriolet – offers improvements in economy.

The 911 Carrera Cabriolet gets the new 3.4 litre flat six with 350 horses and the Carrera S Cabriolet gets the 400 horse 3.8 lump. Porsche hasn’t offered us any performance figures for the 2012 Cabriolet, but they do say both the Carrera and Carrera S can better 28mpg. Which is quite a bit down on the 911 Coupe (34.4mpg and 32.4mpg).

Both the 911 Carrera and Carrera S Cabriolet will debut at the Detroit Motor Show in January and go on sale in the UK in March 2012. The Carrera Cabriolet will cost from £79,947 and the Carrera S Cabriolet from £89,740.

(13 photos – click any thumbnail for full gallery)

By Cars UK