PORSCHE DRIVING EXPERIENCE CENTRE

Jonathan Crouch tries Porsche's Driving Experience Centre at Silverstone.

The weighting and tactility of its controls, the charisma of its engines, the balance of its chassis. All these things go into making the modern Porsche the experience that it is. The Stuttgart company's engineers definitely aren't ones for leaving the details to chance and every aspect of every car is the subject of obsessive honing and development but there's one area where the control freaks at Weissach have always been forced into being uncharacteristically hands off and that's the driver.

If you've driven a Porsche, you'll already have an understanding of the importance that the German manufacturer places on the driver but once the keys have been handed over, the bag of flesh, bones, nerves and racing driver fantasies behind the wheel is on his or her own. It isn't hard to see how that might rankle with a company which spent the best part of half a century painstakingly finessing its 911 sportscar towards perfection. Now, however, Porsche can exert a little more influence on how its products are driven by UK customers through the medium of the Porsche Driving Experience Centre at Silverstone. I went along to try it.

There's no doubt that the average car buyer has only a very limited grasp of their car's true capabilities. In the case of a car with the depth of talent that Porsche builds in to its products, most owners barely scratch the surface. That's why Porsche invested so heavily in the Porsche Driving Experience Centre. It gives the company the chance to show its customers what their machines can do and how they can get the best out of them. Anyone can book a course from £275, which includes use of a car, tyres, fuel, insurance and so on.
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