2018 Porsche 911 Turbo S Exclusive Offers Industry-First Braided Carbon Fiber Wheels For The Price Of A Ford Fiesta

Timothy Cain
by Timothy Cain

Porsche claims to be the first automaker to bring braided carbon-fiber wheels to a production car by offering a quartet of ultra-strong, ultra-light, dark grey rims as an optional upgrade on the 2018 Porsche 911 Turbo S Exclusive Series.

You remember the one. It’s a regular ol’ 911, only turbocharged and upgraded to S trim and then further upgraded with 27 more horsepower for — make sure you’ve swallowed that last bite — $67,000. There will only be 500. The top speed is 205 miles per hour. The total cost is $257,500, or roughly the cost of a regular 911 Turbo S and a Macan GTS. There’s a lot of Golden Yellow Metallic.

And for the price of a 2017 Ford Fiesta, you could upgrade your 2018 Porsche 911 Turbo S Exclusive Series with $14,980 wheels.

Something tells me that if you’re about to purchase a $257,500 Porsche 911 Turbo S, the decision between a new Ford Fiesta and a set of carbon fiber wheels isn’t keeping you up at night.

Be an early adopter. Believe the hype. Get the wheels.

Porsche says the hugely in-depth process involves nearly 10 square yards of carbon-fiber fabric, “cutting and assembling over 200 individual components,” and the largest carbon-fiber braiding machine… in the world. The result is a wheel that’s 20 percent stronger and 20 percent lighter, achieving the very best kind of heft reduction: an unsprung weight cutback. The total weight reduction, according to Car And Driver, is 75 pounds.

Through the first seven months of 2017, U.S. sales of the Porsche 911 are down 15 percent. Though it’s still Porsche USA’s best-selling non-SUV, the 911 is on track to suffer a six-year U.S. sales low in 2017.

Ford’s accessory catalogue says you can replace the 15-inch covered steelies on a basic Ford Fiesta S Sport with $868 16-inch, 8-spoke black track alloys. Ford Fiesta S buyers likely won’t do that. But for Porsche 911 Turbo S Exclusive Series buyers, what’s another $15,000?

Timothy Cain is a contributing analyst at The Truth About Cars and Autofocus.ca and the founder and former editor of GoodCarBadCar.net. Follow on Twitter @timcaincars.

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  • Ldl20 Ldl20 on Aug 21, 2017

    "Porsche claims to be the first automaker to bring braided carbon-fiber wheels to a production car" Didn't Ford offer carbon rims with a version of a Shelby Mustang a few years ago?

    • See 3 previous
    • JimZ JimZ on Aug 21, 2017

      @notwhoithink braiding uses impressive machines like this one: http://www.herzog-online.com/_rubric/index.php?rubric=Products+Composites+EN to form/assemble parts from basically "continuous" strands of CF.

  • Caboose Caboose on Aug 21, 2017

    Well, there's obviously my answer to the QOTD about how I would spend my $31,400 today's-new-car-ATP: A new Fiesta 1.0T with a stick upgraded with a set of the braided carbon rims from a Porsche 911 Turbo S Exclusive Series.

  • TheMrFreeze That new Ferrari looks nice but other than that, nothing.And VW having to put an air-cooled Beetle in its display to try and make the ID.Buzz look cool makes this classic VW owner sad 😢
  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
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