Nine eleven, rhymes with heaven.

Porsche 911 Carrera GTS Cabriolet.

It takes a good dash of chutzpah to sit at a red light in an open top car worth  £132,000 during a cost of living crisis.

People look. Actually, they do that very English thing of the long sideways glance. It’s disguised looking.

And why wouldn’t they?

Waiting for the lights to change, I’m in a factory fresh Porsche 911 Carrera GTS convertible, one of the nicest cars I can think of to be driving in the summer.

Benchmark and icon are just some of the accolades it has gathered in the motoring world since its introduction in 1964. Nine and eleven are two numbers that when put together, mean something to anyone interested in cars.

Burbling behind me is the heart of the machine, a twin turbo-charged 3.0 litre engine that will spit you from 0 to 60 mph in under four seconds and, if I fancy, onto a licence shredding 192 mph top speed. This engineering masterpiece is attached to a state-of-the- art auto gearbox, another technical triumph that can change gears in a tenth of a second.

This car can generate reams of impressive stats and graphs and weaken the sphincters of occupants, but to drive it legally, (absolutely m’lud) on public roads that are familiar, is the point of today. There will be no tyre smoking white-knuckle stuff here.

Car buffs, serious and usually bearded men, who drink deeply from the Pierian Spring of motoring knowledge, always want to know how a car like this handles. Translated, what they really want to talk about is torque and turbo wastegates. Whatever floats your proverbial I guess; they can parrot the facts, but I’m never sure they can just enjoy the joy.

‘Cor, bloody, bloody lovely’, purred my passenger, my car mad mum friend, as we swooped along the twisty roads around the local villages. Traction out of corners is, frankly, colossal. Each rear tyre is a foot wide, with the fair ground thrill dialled up by this car having rear axle steering  – just one option from a very long list. If your face is older than 25 then some if it will be pulled from left to right in a car that challenges the laws of physics when it comes to going around bends.

And the ride? More purring. Firm and fabulous are two stand out words from my passenger’s verdict.

The 911 is epically fast, from whatever speed you choose to start from, and one of the closest ways you’ll ever get to making a Star Wars-like jump to light speed.

Its clever too, acoustic sensors in the front wheel arch detect swirled up water and you get advised to switch driving modes from normal to wet in the rain - before you think of it.

Baby rabbit crossing the road? No problem, as the brakes will take you from 60 mph to stationary in the shake of a tail while testing that your eyeballs are properly secured in your head.

The stroking beard sages also tut about how the stiffness of a car’s body is hopelessly compromised when you don’t have a metal roof, talking darkly about lack of rigidity and scuttle shake. They had a point in the early 1970s when British Leyland’s finest topless offerings would fold up like origami soon after leaving the dealership. Forget it with this 911. All such concerns have been engineered out of existence. In Porsche speak this is ‘intelligent lightweight construction in aluminium and steel composite’ the result is that it feels rock solid over any surface.

The problem seekers are also keen to point out that the convertible is 70kg heavier than the coupe; cue finger wagging about the impact that has on performance, but unless your day job is driving for a Formula One team I would suggest you won’t notice or care.

Also quick is the opening and closing roof, something you can do while travelling at up to 31 mph although I’m not sure why you would operate it at these speeds unless you’ve forgotten to glue on your toupee.

With the roof closed you are as snug as a bug in a rug. Inside, every millimetre of the 911 feels as if it has all been hewn from one single ingot of material, just like Thor’s hammer. The controls are laid out with impeccable logic and the instruments are clear, crisp and beautiful.

Practicality? Not an issue if you need to take your lover away for a weekend that involves very little clothing; it’s two squashy bags and a bandolier of credit cards, tops.

Bathed in sunshine with the roof open you can just savour the moment as this technical tour de force makes every journey memorable.   

One of the things that make the competition weep is Porsche’s unerring ability to tweak the 911, improving on what you thought was nigh on perfect anyway. The Stuttgart team have just released a hybrid version of the GTS adding some electric magic to power delivery, somehow making the driving experience even better than before.

Hopefully somebody will be praising the latest and greatest 911 in another 60 years.