How the Porsche 911 Turbo Became a Performance Legend
Once meaning merely a forced-induction engine, turbo came to signify so much more
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The turbocharger is, at its core, an elegant piece of engineering. Two interconnected fans: one is spun by the force of an engine’s exhaust flowing over it, a motion that is then transferred to the second fan to make it spin, compressing the air and helping it generate more power. It’s been around for more than a century — found first in planes, ships, and trains, then working its way to trucks and passenger vehicles. These days, they’re ubiquitous in automotive lineups, their ability to provide more power from a smaller package a key tool in gaming government fleet efficiency mandates.
But only one car can claim to be the trendsetter that made “turbo” a household name: the Porsche 911 Turbo.
Ever had a coffee maker, vacuum, or hair dryer with a “turbo” function? You can thank Porsche for that. With the 911 Turbo, the brand took a simple mechanical means of boosting an engine and turned it into a synonym for speed and power, signifying performance in any context. Even Porsche does it now; you won’t find a turbocharger on the all-electric Taycan or Macan EV, but the automaker still uses the T-word to denote the most powerful variants.
To learn the roots of the term’s current common use, however, we have to trace the lineage of Porsche’s turbocharged sports cars back to the first time Zuffenhausen slapped a snail on a 911’s flat-six. This is the history of the Porsche 911 Turbo.
1975: The 930 marks the start of the 911 Turbo legacy
The very first 911 Turbo wasn’t technically even called the 911 Turbo. Instead, it was known as the 930 Turbo — 930 being the designator used at Porsche to describe the model. (Keep in mind, this was back when the 911’s internal code was still just, well, 911.) The brand had been dallying with turbocharged engines for race cars since the 1960s, but in order to push into the series it wanted, it needed to homologate a vehicle for production that the racers could then be based on. So, come 1975, the automaker slapped a turbocharger on the 3.0-litre flat-six used in the sharp-edged Carrera RS 3.0 and dropped it in a 911 to make the 930.
Okay, it was a little more involved than that; engineers also upgraded the brakes, suspension and gearbox to accommodate the extra power — the latter actually a four-speed manual rather than the five-speed of regular 911s, but the added torque compensated for the difference. From the outside, the most notable change was found at the rear, where a massive spoiler dubbed the “whale tail” for its resemblance to a cetacean fluke increased downforce and helped the engine breathe; wider fenders also added panache.
Generally subtle changes, but the results were anything but. The engine’s 256 horsepower for European versions and 234 ponies for American ones wasn’t groundbreaking by today’s standards, but thanks to a delicate curb weight of around 1270 kilogram and a rear-mounted centre of gravity that aided the rear-wheel-drive car’s acceleration run, that first Turbo — or Turbo Carrera, as it was first known in the U.S. — did the 0-96 kph dash in 4.9 seconds, according to Car and Driver’s testing at the time. It was the first of many eye-popping results the Turbo would rack up in that benchmark trial over the generations.
Just as notable as the acceleration was the manner in which it was delivered. The 930’s big KKK turbocharger was notorious for its turbo lag, kicking on like an afterburner between 3000 and 4000 rpm. If that happened in a turn, the car was given to a sudden bout of oversteer; lifting off the throttle under those circumstances (a natural reaction) could make it worse. Add in the short wheelbase, and the Turbo developed a reputation for spinning out of control, leading it to receive the nickname of “Widowmaker.”
A batch of updates came in 1978, when Porsche pumped the engine up to 3.3 litres and made a few other adjustments to push power in European models to 221 kilowatts and U.S. ones to 196. The brakes, suspension and aerodynamics also received in-kind changes; the revised spoiler was dubbed the “tea tray.” By 1980, shifting emissions regulations made it too hard for Porsche to sell the 930 in the U.S. or Japan; by 1986, though, it was back, with power now up to 210 kilowatts and targa-top and convertible versions entering the fray. A new front end also became available for special order: the so-called Flachbau, or “flatnose,” which swapped out the classic round-eyed 911 face for one inspired by the 935 race car and its ever-so-Eighties pop-up headlights.
1990: After 14 years, the second generation Turbo arrives
After 25 years on sale, the original 911 was finally retired in 1989, replaced by a new generation known internally as 964; to the public, it was still known simply as 911. The future of the 911 Turbo, however, had already been revealed by that point under another name. The Porsche 959, unveiled in 1986, was a bleeding-edge piece of automotive tech that turned the Turbo concept up to 11: it packed a compact 2.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six in the back that made an astounding 331 kilowatts horsepower, but routed it to all four wheels. Comfortable enough to drive daily yet swift enough to claim the title of the world’s fastest production car, it was unlike any street-legal machine the world had ever seen.
So when the new 964-generation 911 Turbo debuted in 1990, it would have been reasonable to expect it to follow closely in the 959’s tire tracks. In fact, though, the super-Porsche was so cutting edge, its influence would be more greatly seen in the following generation of Turbo (more on that in a bit). At launch in 1990, the 964 Turbo stuck with the 3.3-litre engine of the final 930 models — hence the car becoming known as the 911 Turbo 3.3 — albeit tweaked to turn out 316 hp. Likewise, its body more closely resembled the 930 than the 959; it still bore a tea tray spoiler out back, for example.
That first version was just a stopgap, however. By the car’s third model year, in 1993, Porsche had pulled together a more powerful motor to slide into the rear-mounted engine compartment, creating the 911 Turbo 3.6. As the name implies, the new motor — which, in naturally aspirated form, had launched with the 964 generation — displaced 3.6 litres and spun up 264 kilowatts. It wasn’t long for the world, lasting only a year, but it stuck around long enough to earn a star turn in the first Bad Boys film.
Porsche had one last card to play with the turbocharged 964 before it faded away. At the end of production, the company sent 93 chassis to its Exclusiv division to have them built into the 911 Turbo 3.6 S, which packed extra power — more boost and other adjustments turned the wick up to 283 kilowatts — as well as unique air intakes and spoilers. The Flachbau treatment also returned as an option, although the headlights were now exposed. The Turbo 3.6 S was the first time Turbo and S were paired together, but it wouldn’t be the last.
1995: The third Turbo channels the 959’s legacy
The third-generation 911, known internally as the 993, first hit the streets in 1994 in Carrera form, and it landed with a bang. The tip-to-tail update not only brought a fresh, more streamlined design to the iconic sports car, it also civilised it, revising the suspension to tame some of the car’s more unruly traits, updating the 3.6-litre engine and adding a sixth cog to the manual gearbox.
And, with the arrival of the 993-generation 911 Turbo in 1995, the spirit of the 959 finally made its way to the mainstream sports car. The 3.6-litre flat-six was now twin-turbocharged for improved response, just like the 959; more consequentially, 959-style all-wheel-drive now came standard, helping the Turbo make the most of its 298 kilowatts. As always, flared fenders and a big spoiler in the back visually distinguished it from lesser 911s, but the new rear wing was more organically integrated into the design — less of a whale tail, more of a geologic feature.
The combination of 400 horses and four-wheel grip meant the 993 Turbo could redefine straight-line acceleration for the average driver. In Car and Driver testing, the car blitzed from 0-90 kph in 3.7 seconds — quick today, downright insane almost 30 years ago. As if that weren’t enough, Porsche quickly offered a factory option kit to add even more power, taking the flat-six to 316 kilowatts for the 1996 model year.
Then, as the 993 generation was starting to wind down, Porsche once again decided to spice up the 911 Turbo with a model wearing the S badge. Power was up, of course, to the aforementioned 316 kilowatts — but unlike the old 3.6 Turbo S, the top-shelf 993 Turbo received all the bells and whistles, from extra leather trim to carbon fibre add-ons to unique air intakes for the twin-turbo six. It didn’t make the Turbo much quicker, but it did make it more desirable — even if it meant a 60-percent higher price over the non-S version.
2000: The fourth-gen Turbo ditches air cooling, adds an automatic
The 996-gen 911 that debuted in 1998 was undoubtedly the most controversial ever built, before or since. Under the hood, it marked the end of the era of air-cooled engines; outside, it was the first 911 of a whole new visual era for the brand, with ovoid headlights first used on the original Boxster — lights that were unflatteringly compared to fried eggs. Still, it was undoubtedly more refined, growing in size and boasting stronger steel. It was a new 911 for a new millennium.
The 996-generation Turbo that hit the streets in 2000 boasted the same new chassis as naturally aspirated 911s, but the engine used twin turbos to make 414 hp. As had become common, it boasted a wider body and a fixed spoiler; in a new twist, however, the end of the spoiler could rise up further for added downforce, much like the ones on lesser Carreras.
The biggest Turbo-specific change, however, was found between the standard all-wheel-drive system and the boosted engine: in addition to the familiar six-speed manual, for the first time, an automatic was available. Tiptronic, as Porsche called its torque converter automatics, had been a feature of lesser 911s since 1990, but its appearance in the Turbo was still a novelty when it arrived a decade later. The five-speed slushbox offered manual control via steering wheel buttons for drivers who still wanted a sense of control, but the convenience of set-and-forget driving in less exciting moments — and it only lost a few tenths of a second to the manual in the 0-96 dash.
As had become the norm, small, gradual changes was the story of the turbocharged 996. A factory power pack joined the mix not long after launch, pushing power to 331 ponies. Come 2003, the droptop Turbo returned in the form of the 911 Turbo Cabriolet, the first time an official open-roof version had been offered since the last days of the 930. Then in 2004, the Turbo S returned, equipped with the 331-hp engine and a few extra features like new carbon-ceramic brakes as standard.
2006: The fifth-generation Turbo corrects the looks, improves the rest
Porsche fans ultimately made peace with many of the changes the 996 brought, with one main exception: the new headlights. A 911 should have round headlights, was the word — so, when the 997 generation arrived in 2004, it did so once again boasting exactly that.
The shift from 996 to 997 was less severe than the jump between previous generations, largely focusing on cosmetic updates and other gentle refinements. When the new 911 Turbo arrived in 2006, it followed suit; the new front end was a little less bright-eyed and a little more classic Porsche, and the 3.6-litre twin-turbo boxer-six now dialled up to 352 kilowatts . A new feature called the Sport Chrono package let the turbos boost up to 17.4 psi instead of their usual maximum of 14.5 in 10-second bursts, enabling the car to punch out an extra 59.6 newton meters over its usual 63.72 newton meters for passing and hard launches. It paid off: in C/D testing, both six-speed stick and five-speed Tiptronic versions clocked a 3.4-second 0-96 time.
As with the 996, a convertible followed, arriving in 2007. Unlike the past generation of 911, however, a hefty midlife refresh showed up not long after. The so-called 997.2-generation 911 showed up first in base model guise; the styling was gently revised, but the big news was in the powertrain, where new direct-injection flat-sixes appeared in the rear and a new seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox replaced the five-speed Tiptronic. PDK, as the new transmission was called (it stood for Porsche Doppelkupplungsgetriebe), traded the torque converter of conventional autos for a pair of clutches that enabled instantaneous movement between gears, improving shift times — and, thus, performance.
As such, of course, it was offered on the new 997.2 Turbo that debuted in 2009, an option alongside the six-speed manual. It was joined by a whole new engine: a 3.8-litre flat-six that made 367 kilowatts. Combined with the Sport Chrono package and its launch control feature, the PDK made the two-pedal 911 Turbo the one to beat off the line: C/D saw it blitz from 0 to 90 in 2.9 seconds. The PDK version also saw the first appearance of paddle shifters in a 911 Turbo, although they were technically an option; awkward steering wheel buttons were standard.
Unlike past versions, the 911 Turbo Cabriolet launched at the same time as the coupe; a new 911 Turbo S also arrived sooner than with past generations, debuting in early 2010 only about half a year after the regular version. It saw power dialled up to 390 kilowatts, and Sport Chrono standard; in a move that would set the stage for future Turbos, it was only available with PDK.
2013: The sixth-gen 911 Turbo bids adieu to the manual
The 991-generation 911 that was revealed in spring 2011 ahead of going on sale later that year was yet another sea change for the model, one almost on the scale of the 996: it was larger, heavier, and more luxurious than before, with a more refined design to suit the new decade.
The 991’s 911 Turbo debuted two years later in spring 2013; most of the changes versus the Carrera were par for the course — a wider body and combo fixed/pop-up spoiler, standard all-wheel-drive, turbocharged motor — a couple of changes stood out. The 911 Turbo and Turbo S coupes launched simultaneously, the former packing a 513-hp version of the 997.2’s 3.8-litre boxer-six and the latter making 411 kilowatss; more importantly for fans of clutch pedals, the Turbos had gone two-pedal, with the PDK becoming the only gearbox available. Unsurprisingly, though, it paid off at the drag strip: C/D pushed a Turbo S from 0 to 96 kph in 2.6 seconds, one eyeblink behind the 1000-hp Bugatti Veyron. A few months later, Cabriolet versions of the two cars joined the party; speccing the droptop added just two-tenths to the coupe’s time.
2015 saw a thorough facelift for the 911, with the new version dubbed the 991.2; much like the 997’s midlife shift, the design changes were minor, but the powertrain saw bigger moves. The big news for the Turbo was that its name suddenly went from a description that set it apart to a title referring to its performance: for the first time, lesser 911s were also turbocharged, Porsche reducing displacement and adding boost to the flat-six in order to meet emissions standards while also adding power.
The 991.2 911 Turbo and Turbo S, which arrived in late 2015, followed the usual life-cycle update trend of adding power; the Turbo was dialed up to 540 ponies, the Turbo S to 580. The updates let the Turbo match the pre-facelift Turbo S’s 0-60 times, enabling buyers to feel more secure in their decision to upgrade after just a couple of years. Deep-pocketed cognoscenti, however, were offered a chance to grab the 911 Turbo S Exclusive Series coupe in 2017; a factory power upgrade pushed it all the way to 452 kilowatts, while it also added every option in the book and slathered extra leather and microsuede across the interior. It was the modern equivalent of the 993-gen Turbo S — albeit one where buyers were restricted to gold paint.
2020: The seventh-generation 911 Turbo further sharpens the spear
The 992-generation 911 that launched in late 2018 was as big a change as the 991, boasting a larger new platform, an increased focus on tech (for the first time, an all-digital instrument panel sat ahead of the driver), and a look that aimed to distill the 997 and 991 generations into a single package. The PDK was up to eight speeds now, and it wasn’t just standard, it was mandatory; a manual was only added to select models after launch.
The 991-gen Turbo models appeared in 2020, first in Turbo S coupe and cabrio form in March (in what could only be considered an inopportune time to launch a new car) and then in Turbo hardtop and soft top variants in July. A new engine was under the hood — a 3.7-litre twin-turbo monster based on the 3.0-litre one of the 991-gen Carrera and Carrera S, dialled up to 427 hp in the Turbo and 641 in the Turbo S. Both were quick: C/D saw the Turbo S coupe do 0-96 in 2.2 seconds, and the regular Turbo do it in 2.4.
Ballistically quick as they were, however, all those cars used a dual-clutch gearbox as had been true since 2013, and used all-wheel-drive as all Turbo had since 1995. Which is why it was a surprise and a delight for old-fashioned Turbo fans when, in spring 2022, Porsche revealed the 911 Sport Classic: a Turbo-based 911 coupe with a fixed ducktail spoiler, rear-wheel-drive and a seven-speed manual gearbox. Its twin-turbo flat-six had to be dialled back to 404 kilowatts to accommodate the stick shift, and the 0-96 time rose to 3.7 seconds — but the buyers of the 1,250 examples made likely didn’t care. After all, while the 911 Turbo always put down impressive acceleration times, they were never the point; the whole package was.
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Six standout Australian galleries to know now.
Australia’s gallery scene is booming. More galleries than ever before are going on the road to participate in art fairs in scene that is rapidly maturing. Meet the passionate local owners from around Australia who are energising the creative milieu with the abstract, the edgy, the Indigenous and the generally astounding.
Hugo Michell Gallery
The district may not roll off the artistic tongue like Paris’s Montmartre or London’s Shoreditch, and yet the prim hedges of Adelaide’s Beulah Park suburb provide cover to a stealth powerhouse of the Australian contemporary art movement, tucked away in a charming, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it converted Victorian workers’ cottage. Since 2008, the Hugo Michell Gallery has unflappably carried the torch for established and emerging acts with equal fidelity, across a broad sweep of mediums from photography to printmaking, textile to ceramic. “We try not to get caught up in the hype and handle each artist we represent with the nuance required for promoting their work,” says Michell, currently counting 28 artists on his books. One notable on this year’s busy docket is Melbourne-based Richard Lewer, a social realist—already snapped up by the National Galleries of Australia and Victoria, no less—who for a month from April 10th will probe the uneasy relationship between crime, sport and religion. While comfortable in the skin of his homely suburban bolthole, Michell is not averse to braving the rigours of the Australian art fair circuit (“They’re a bit of a circus, but who doesn’t love a circus?) and often undertakes house visits to acquaint himself with the whims of new customers. “One of the things that gives me the most joy is building a collection for a client,” he says. “We have worked with for 16 years, tailoring and sourcing works for them.” More proof that you don’t need a headline location to generate the biggest stories.
hugomichellgallery.com
Cassandra Bird Gallery
The art sphere often challenges the myth that married partners should not become gallerists—see Iwan and Manuela Wirth of Hauser & Wirth fame, among other examples. And so it is that Cassandra Bird and husband Fabian Jentsch are rapidly cementing a reputation as one the Australian art scene’s supercouples with their 2023-acquired Potts Point space, an expansive four-level heritage terrace fizzing with congeniality, making visitors feel like they have popped to a friend’s (expertly curated) home for elevenses. Which is no great shock: the property doubles as the duo’s own home. Bird brings a wealth of experience, and a hefty contacts book, thanks to long, respected stints in the Big Apple and Berlin, and nine years at Sydney’s RoslynOxley9 Gallery; Jentsch, meanwhile, is an experienced artist, exhibition maker and set designer. “We try to enthuse people, get them excited as we are about those we work with,” says Bird. Meander across the property’s wooden floorboards—perhaps diverting for a chat in the communal courtyard that doubles as a social hub and ideas-exchange forum—and you will enter the realm of Perth-born graphic painter Jedda Daisy-Culley, who has a hallway and wall dedicated to her work; venture upstairs and deep dive into locally based experimental photographer Laura Moore; head into the basement and peruse the collective works the Tennant Creek Brio, out of Warumungu Country in the Northern Territory. All 24 of the gallery’s artists unite under the theme of timelessness. “We are into investigating quality and showing transformational and breakout work from artists,” says Jentsch. “The work we choose must have something that is strong value for us.” Here’s to the sanctity of marriage.
D’lan Contemporary
It speaks volumes for the international reach of Indigenous art that D’lan Contemporary opened an outpost in New York long before expanding the gallery beyond its Melbourne roots to set up shop in Sydney. Then again, founder and director D’lan Davidson is not afraid of expanding his frontiers as a means of hawking Australia’s most vital cultural outpourings; in 2016, he left the Sotheby’s Australia auction house, where he was ensconced as head of aboriginal art, to launch D’lan Contemporary as the go-to gallery for secondary market First Nations art; and he recently travelled to Maastricht in the Netherlands for the prestigious European Fine Arts Foundation Art Fair, promoting a series of Western Arnhem bark paintings and works by Paddy Bedford, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Rover Thomas and other. Closer to home, Davidson has surrounded himself with a team brimming with the requisite Indigenous art smarts, including chief curator and gallery director Luke Scholes. From May 8th-July 4th, the Significant exhibition, a mainstay of the Melbourne gallery for the past ten years, will show across all three of D’lan Contemporary’s locations. “Our exhibitions and all our advocacy work seek to further support and develop the burgeoning global interest in Australian First Nations art and artists,” says Scholes. As if further proof were needed of its commitment, the gallery donates 30 percent of its profit back to artists and their communities. Bravo.
N.Smith Gallery
Enter Nick Smith’s compact office and you notice how the walls are studded by the artworks of those he represents; this is a man, you feel, who has a more intimate connection to his stable than the average gallery chief—an instinct confirmed upon discovering that he has invested his entire life savings into the Surry Hills space. When we meet, Smith’s whiteboard is teeming with collaborative projects, hinting heavily at the kind of edgy, thought-provoking artists that his outfit—comprised of five full-time staff—is renowned for nurturing. “It’s constant, but amazing,” says Smith in his typically reserved manner, more studious scientist than reengage gallerist. “I wanted to contribute to culture in my own way.” The gallery’s current ascension allays any empathetic fears of impending financial doom. This past February, Smith—who cut his teeth at Philip Bacon Galleries in Brisbane and Sydney’s Sullivan+Strumpf—collaborated with the Australian High Commission in India to represent Darrell Sibosado at India Art Fair ’25, and throughout the year will be partnering with the Sydney chapter of Soho House to host a series of private viewings and artist studio visits. Even so, he now splits his time equally between private and public projects, often mentoring artists at all stages of their creative journeys. “It’s that forward momentum. It’s that feeling of progressions and going somewhere that I love,” says Smith. Indeed, the only way is up.
Palas
It is hard—nay, almost impossible—to imagine Palas founders Tania Doropoulos and Matt Glenn frantically trying to scoop up whoever is flavour of the month on Sydney’s perennially shifting art circuit. Here are young gallery partners prone to a slower, more considered approach, instead recruiting a tight roster of internationally famed artists, and choosing to nurture relationships that have been years, sometime decades, in the making. Case in point: video performance maestro Shaun Gladwell, who represented Australia at the 2007 Venice Biennale (a 20-year affiliate), and Melbourne-based artist and noise-musician Marco Fusinato (15 years), who also flew the artistic green and gold at the same festival in 2022. Add to that list Canadian multi-media artist Tamara Henderson and Irish sculptor Eva Rothschild, currently working out of London, and it is clear Palas have a formidable roll call to lean on. “We’re investing a huge amount of time into their processes as art makers,” says Doropoulos. “And I think by extension, we’ve got really good working relationships with other galleries throughout the world.” For its founders, the Palas gallery—which opened in Sydney’s resolutely hipster Waterloo suburb just over a year ago with a silkscreen painting medley by the aforementioned Fusinato—is somewhat of a flag-planting endeavour on home soil: both earned a certain amount of their stripes overseas—Doropoulos as former artistic director of Frieze London and Frieze Studios, and Glenn at Sadie Coles HQ, also in the British capital. Australian art disciples will no doubt be praying for a long domestic residency.
Coma
If Sotiris Sotiriou’s consciously balanced ensemble of black Saint Laurent suit, single gold chain and flash of bare chest are anything to go by, the Coma gallery founder wields a sharp eye—a handy attribute to have when your career depends on identifying aesthetic clout, what hits and what doesn’t. From humble beginnings in 2016 in a subterranean road space next to Elvis Pizza on Sydney’s New South Head Road, his enterprise gradually flowered, first to East Sydney, then Chippendale, before fully blooming at his current space in up-and-coming Marrickville, in what was once a coffee factory. The predominantly light-industrial area has witnessed around half a dozen new gallery debuts in recent years, and Coma’s door-fling, filled as it was with hip young Inner West couples sourcing bold, ambitious art for their homes and offices, suggests Sotiriou has timed his arrival to perfection. February’s opening exhibition was hosted by Australian (but Santa Fe based) figurative painter Justin Williams, whose approach riffs on the folkloric traditions of Russian and Polish art, rich with symbolism and psychological details; this work forms a striking counterpoint to the abstract expressionism of other Sotiriou recruits, such as Zara June Williams and her partner Jack Lanagan Dunbar. The Coma head honcho, who had a spell selling to wealthy clients at Nanda Hobbs, says that private clients now make up most of his customer base. This year, as he prepares to attend three international art fairs, he estimates his artistic head count to increase by 30 percent. He can, no doubt, also point you in the direction of a fine tailor.
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Cool as Ice
Mercedes-Benz’s CEO Ola Källenius is expert at racing a nearly four-tonne truck across a frozen lake. Can he steer the marque’s EV-focused future as adeptly?
Ola Källenius is standing in a cold, bare workshop just south of the Arctic Circle in his native Sweden. A heavily disguised prototype of the new electric G-Class SUV—not yet launched when we meet—has just returned from high-speed, low-grip testing on tracks cut into the frozen lakes nearby and is being hoisted into the air on a hydraulic lift for inspection. As it drips meltwater onto the concrete floor, Källenius, CEO of the Mercedes-Benz Group, eats his lunch (today, a premade sandwich and a carton of juice) and speaks in fluent German to the mostly Austrian engineers who spend months in this bleak locale ensuring that the company’s new models can cope with the types of conditions in which vanishingly few customers will ever actually drive. They discuss the truck’s handling on ice and the progress of its test program. Källenius compliments them on the car’s dynamics—how stable it remained even at speed, how safe he felt driving it—and asks them how long they’re here.
“There are some harsh realities to this job, and to the car industry,” he tells me later. “But this is what I love doing: spending time with our designers, or driving with you on an ice-lake in Sweden, or talking to these engineers. I wanted to congratulate them on what they’ve achieved. We get to enjoy a nice couple of days here, but they’re here for a long time.”
At 193 cm, Källenius might tower over most of them physically, but there’s nothing in his demeanor that hints at the disparity in their corporate statuses. Nor is this the kind of place you’d expect to find the head of one of the world’s great luxury brands: a man paid roughly $22 million last year to lead the 166,000 employees of a company valued at around $75 billion, whose founder, Carl Benz, invented the motor car and whose genuinely iconic logo has graced the nose of everything from popemobiles and Lewis Hamilton’s Formula 1 racer to the most expensive automobile ever sold at auction. In a recent report, investment analysts Bernstein described Mercedes-Benz under Källenius’s reign as a “four-wheeled cash-generation machine”.
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz
But the celebrated car marques are not like luxury brands that make watches or couture or accessories or Champagne. Look beyond the alluring badge and bodywork for a moment: the objects Mercedes-Benz and its rivals produce are insanely complex, ever-changing and hugely capital-intensive—and must succeed in an utterly cutthroat market. Their impact on the environment and the economy has always made them perennial hot-button issues politically. But the electrification of the automobile has put these companies in the geopolitical crosshairs like never before, as governments swap tariffs and risk a global trade war to ensure that they keep their respective shares of the car industry, even as it undergoes an unprecedented transformation.
And of course, the cars need to be remade, too. Add the impact of electrification to Källenius’s own manifesto for Mercedes-Benz, and this storied marque is likely to change more in the next decade than it did in the previous 138 years. “It’s a once-in-a-century transformation,” he says. “We are reinventing our original invention.”
So who is the guy steering Mercedes through this tumult? What’s his plan? And what cars will he give us? Källenius has sat for plenty of interviews in his five years as CEO (his second five-year term is set to conclude in 2029), but this is the first time that he has offered anything more. Robb Report was invited to spend the weekend with him in Arjeplog, the tiny northern-Swedish town whose population swells fourfold each winter as the global car industry descends to test its secret new models on the area’s frozen lakes. Spy photographers abound, but to reduce the chance of its future lineup being scooped, Mercedes rents its own private expanse of sheet ice from a local landowner. I watch Källenius as he test-drives the electric G at his empire’s oddest and most northerly outpost, meets local staff and records social-media footage. He drives some other, more secret new electric AMGs that I am definitely not allowed to see, whose debuts are much further off and which, when not on the ice, remain hidden beneath their heavy covers outside the workshop.
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz
Källenius has a reputation for being fearsomely intelligent, rational and efficient, but also not the type of hyper-alpha asshole who too often comes to lead a carmaker. Over the weekend, I see that sharpness not just in the logic of his answers, but in the nuance of the English prose, as perfect as his German, in which he delivers them.
I’m not sure I’d want those piercing blue eyes and that high-wattage intellect turned on me in a meeting if I didn’t have my numbers straight, but his non-asshole character dominates. It comes through in the easy egalitarianism he displays with the engineers in the workshop, or how he notices and thanks waitstaff, or the way he’s enjoying a casual dinner and a beer with a long table of employees of all stripes when I first arrive at the unglamorous Silverhatten hotel where he’s staying—a glorified bunkhouse for the United Nations of engineers and test-drivers who flock here. This is clearly a leader who sees the obligations of his office as clearly as its privileges: an attitude underpinned by a natural Nordic modesty and reserve.
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz
“I guess your personality is something that forms in younger years, and I’m not sure you can fundamentally change it,” he tells me over coffee one morning. “There is a Swedish core in the way I act, and maybe most Swedes are not kick-the-door-down types. I believe this should be true for anybody who is at Mercedes or has the privilege to lead Mercedes: We are custodians of that star for a brief moment. It’s my job to hand it over safe and in better condition. The person is not the brand.”
Perhaps not, but the brand will look very different by the time this person is done with it in 2029. And you can add loyalty to that list of his qualities: Källenius has never worked anywhere else, having joined Mercedes-Benz in 1993 straight out of the Stockholm School of Economics, where he founded an American football team called the Traders, for which he was captain of the offense. True to form, he studied tapes of the Chicago Bears and New England Patriots in order to write the team playbooks. At Mercedes, he was a finance guy at first; an early posting took him to Alabama, to help set up the Mercedes factory in Tuscaloosa, where he became—and remains—a Crimson Tide fan.
In 2003, at the age of just 34, he was put in charge of the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren supercar project; two years later, he was given control of Mercedes-Benz High Performance Powertrains, the firm’s in-house Formula 1 engine-maker. After a year as vice president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz US International back in Tuscaloosa, he was recalled to Germany in 2010 to become vice president and managing director of AMG, Mercedes’s high-performance road-car division. Then came two board positions to prove his breadth of ability—sales and marketing, followed by research and development—before he ascended to the top job in 2019 at the age of 50.
The electric G-Class we’re about to drive together (now officially if awkwardly named the “G580 with EQ Technology”) is a neat encapsulation of many of the things Källenius has tried to do at Mercedes. First, it’s an EV, which fits his initial plan to make everything electric—“where market conditions allow”—by 2030. Second, it’s expensive, with a starting price in the US of $161,500 (around $257,000, though likely to cost more in Australia). Another critical if controversial part of his manifesto is to shift Mercedes upmarket; he spun off the truck business early and is currently in the process of dropping high-volume, low-margin models including the A- and B-Classes. And lastly, he wants new models to still feel like Mercedes vehicles, even if the design that underpins them is radically different from what came before. And the G-Wagen—with its gloriously anachronistic overengineering that you can feel and hear every time you clunk a door shut—epitomises the Mercedes ethos whether the vehicle is gas or electric.
Other new Mercedes EVs go much further in their innovation, gaining greater advantage from their electric drivetrains given that they were designed as EVs from the outset. They use Mercedes’s new MB.OS operating system with built-in AI and receive fresh design cues inside and out—not least the mad, vast, almost full-width hyperscreen user interface—rather than the same upright, rectilinear lines first sketched out to suit the needs of farmers and soldiers when the G-Class was introduced 45 years ago.
But as shorthand for old Merc meeting new, the electric G is perfect, and it’s pleasing to be driven in it by the CEO on whose watch it was conceived and executed. “Yes, this is an electric G,” he says as he drifts it across the glassy frozen lake, “but it’s 100 percent G. The most important box for any G-Class to tick is the Schöckl mountain in Austria, to earn that Schöckl-proven plaque they all have. I did five trips up and down it in the electric G in the autumn, and not only can it do the Schöckl, I felt it could do the Schöckl best of all.”
His stints at AMG, in Formula 1, and with McLaren have turned this “spreadsheet guy” into a skilled driver, though most Swedes seem to have the ability to safely slide a car on ice coded into their DNA. Even with the G sideways at around 110 km/h, a plume of snow and ice billowing high behind it, Källenius has enough spare mental-processing capacity to adjust the screen settings while telling a funny story about the very first time an electric G even crossed his mind.
He was at the Detroit Auto Show in 2018, when the company was first showing the revised G-Class. Arnold Schwarzenegger came to the unveiling and asked Källenius’s predecessor, Dieter Zetsche, if an electric version was in the cards. “Dr. Zetsche said, ‘Yes, of course,’ Källenius recalls. “I was head of R & D at the time, and one of my colleagues turned to me and said, ‘Do we even have an electric G in the plan?’ I said that I guessed we did now.”
Those less keen on electric cars than Arnie and Ola might be pleased by the fact that the ambition to be battery-only by 2030 has fizzled fast. Mercedes now predicts that EVs and plug-in hybrids will account for only half of its sales by the late 2020s, and the company is refreshing its range of gas engines to keep them relevant and selling deep into the 2030s. This is a systemic issue and no reflection on Mercedes products; Källenius has always averred “where market conditions allow”, and market conditions currently don’t. But the retreat is still slightly awkward.
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz
“The early adopter phase is over,” he tells me. “Now we need to convince every customer. I think it would be a mistake to say, ‘Okay, electric is growing a bit slower, let’s sit back, wait, and not do anything.’ Because if you put product into the market that is so convincing that most customers go, ‘Yeah, maybe I didn’t have iPhone 1, but iPhone 4 looks pretty good,’ you can get very quick, even exponential growth. And if you were the one that said, ‘I’m not going to set sail here; let’s wait and see what the weather does,’ all the other boats would be out on the ocean, and you’d miss the race.”
But if buyers are going to be sold on EVs by the technology rather than by brand power, what does Mercedes’ 138 years of history count for? With customers attracted to new EV marques that are able to innovate unconstrained by precedent—and one of those brands having a market cap 7.5 times that of Mercedes, despite selling a few hundred thousand fewer cars per year—does heritage become a liability rather than an asset?
“We also do unconventional things,” Källenius insists. “With blow-your-mind–type features like the crazy hyperscreen in the EQS and the EQE, a lot of people are looking at Mercedes who perhaps didn’t look before. We are one of the biggest automotive sponsors in e-sports. Formula 1 is off the charts; 53 percent of F1 fans are between 15 and 35, and 37 percent are women. When we do crazy things like the G-Class collaborations with Moncler or the late Virgil Abloh, you go beyond the traditional auto crowd to one that buys from other luxury brands. My test is if one of my kids sends me a picture and goes, like, ‘Dad, what is this?’ I got their attention.”
I wonder how the former finance guy now handles running one of the world’s great luxury brands and to whom he looks for inspiration. He acknowledges that he meets with Bernard Arnault at LVMH and Jean- Frédéric Dufour at Rolex but is coy about the nature of their discussions.
“We also reach out to people in other luxury businesses to understand how they think,” Källenius notes. “I had the good fortune to meet Brunello Cucinelli, and he invited me down to Solomeo, the hamlet which he has helped to restore. It’s one of the most beautiful villages I’ve ever seen. I learned a lot about fabrics, quality, stealth luxury, sometimes not emphasising the brand so much. A fine gentleman like that has a very clear understanding of what luxury means in his business. We brought some secret new-vehicle designs to show him and to get his input.”
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz
“Maybe you can’t compare a high-intensity, high-engineering, high-capital-investment good like a car to a piece of clothing,” he adds. “They are different businesses. But good chefs eat in each other’s restaurants even though they have a totally different style of cooking, just to see what the others are doing. But when you go back into your kitchen, you’re still the chef, and you put together the recipe.”
I sense a slight frustration from the hyperrational Swede—perhaps that he believes he has gotten the recipe right but has to wait a bit longer for diners’ tastes to catch up. In many cases, judged on any objective criteria, the new Mercedes EVs will be the best cars the company has ever made, including the electric G. The customers, though, are as busy trying to get their heads around this brave new world as the automotive CEOs are.
“This is definitely the most transformative decade since the inception of the company,” Källenius agrees. “But we’ve always done this. The Swabian engineers who founded Mercedes didn’t look at the horseshoe and think, ‘How do we make this lighter to make the horse run faster?’ They wanted to get the horse out of the equation and do something new. That attitude hasn’t changed. We’ve always looked through the windscreen, not in the mirror.”
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Men at Play
Two restless entrepreneurs build a Belizean island paradise especially for those “aha! moments”.
Though he’s supposed to be in what he calls his “play years” now, Knoxville-based real-estate entrepreneur Steve Hall still finds himself working on vacation. After a trip to Belize, he got the itch to build something new and started meeting with developers. Hall hit it off with David Keener, CEO and owner of Vision Properties, and together they acquired an isolated tract on Placencia Caye, a private island just five minutes by boat from the mainland.
After two and a half years of work, they’ve recently started welcoming guests to Prana Maya, a secluded, wellness-focused retreat that enjoys expansive views of the Caribbean Sea, the island’s lagoon and the Maya Mountains. “We designed everything to inspire people,” Hall says of the property. “Every aspect of the resort is intentional. Every service we offer is designed to create that ‘aha! moment’ that will rock someone’s world.”
The property includes seven three- and four-bedroom villas featuring locally carved wooden doors. The breezy, secluded structures are sited to prioritise views of the water, and each has its own plunge pool. Rooms at the Inn—a collection of 10 airy, light-filled suites—face the ocean. Each guest has an assigned butler, and every bed at the resort is fitted with a custom grounding mat, designed to replicate a connection with nature; some studies suggest they promote mental and physical well-being.
Belize’s tropical landscape is the catalyst for getting outdoors. Its unique saltwater flats give sport-fishing aficionados a bucket-list opportunity: catching what the International Game Fishing Association calls the Grand Slam—permit, tarpon and bonefish—all in one day. So Hall and Keener recruited High Adventure Company, a global outfitter with 30 years of guiding expertise, to take guests on exclusive angling excursions. The resort will also offer cave-tubing, jungle-trekking, zip-lining and diving trips.
Courtesy of Prana Maya
If you’re in search of less rugged activities, head to the spa and wellness centre. The design team placed it on prime real estate: the Inn’s top floor, which has 360-degree water views and 5 m ceilings. Here, you’ll find a yoga studio, five private treatment rooms and a sound-therapy space. You can also enjoy Prana Maya’s private beach, the only sandy stretch on the island that isn’t shared with another property.
At The Grill, the open-air restaurant, executive chef Liesel Kirste cooks with indigenous ingredients—many sourced from the resort’s four-hectare farm. The menu includes elevated fare such as locally caught lobster, grilled and served over fresh pasta. Even components of more casual dishes are made from scratch: at the Island Club—with its outdoor kitchen, lawn games and forthcoming palapa-shaded pickleball court—the ketchup and mayonnaise are made in-house. That gives the culinary team the flexibility to design a bespoke menu, upon request, to suit your nutritional needs.
Ultimately, Prana Maya is the expression of a million small details (down to the reef-safe spa products, curated by a Belizean supplier) and the location’s natural majesty. “When you get out to the island site, see the spectacular views of the Caribbean, turn another direction and see the beauty of the Maya Mountains, it is such an awesome and almost overwhelming feeling,” Hall says. One he is determined to share with everyone who visits.
Top image: Benedict Kim/Courtesy of Prana Maya
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How to Use Your Dress Watch to Nail Casual Style This Autumn
The dress watch is back and more laid-back than ever. Here’s how to rock your Cartier and Piaget pieces with casual looks
After the seemingly never-ending hype around steel sports watches, dress watches have been making a comeback. But it’s not just the average 42 mm dress watch that’s sparking interest (although, those too, are in the running), but also funky vintage diamond-accented timepieces or small-sized, almost feminine pieces are trending. Recently, actor Paul Mescal was spotted on the red carpet of the Annual Academy Museum Gala wearing a Cartier Tank Mini with his tux, while sports legend Dwyane Wade wore a 28 mm diamond Tiffany & Co. Eternity watch with his black tie ensemble to the same event. While these guys were wearing dress watches in their intended setting, here we show you how to make a dress watch work for casual weekend wear too.
Try dabbling in unexpected pairings like an army green Ghiaia safari jacket with a vintage Chopard Happy Diamonds timepiece or Breguet Classique Ref. 7147 (the ultimate dressy timekeeper) with a Louis Vuitton sweatsuit and a Brioni overcoat. Anything goes these days and the more unexpected the timepiece, the stronger the statement. It’s good news all around—for your wardrobe and your investments in the vault.
Above: Blancpain 39.7 mm Villeret Ultraplate in 18-karat red gold, $69,675; Tod’s faux-shearling and denim jacket, $5,6859; Tom Ford cashmere and silk turtleneck, $2,535.
PHOTOGRAPHED BY MATALLINA. WATCH EDITOR, PAIGE REDDINGER. FASHION DIRECTOR, ALEX BADIA. STYLE EDITOR, NAOMI ROUGEAU.
Jaeger-LeCoultre 40 mm Reverso One Duetto Jewellery in 18-karat pink gold and diamonds, $79,560. Right: Chopard 32 mm vintage Happy Diamonds in 18-karat white gold and diamonds, $19,930, analogshift.com; Ghiaia cotton safari jacket, $1,426; Eton cotton T-shirt, 358; Hermès denim trousers, $1,674.
Audemars Piguet 34 mm vintage automatic ultrathin watch in 18-karat white gold and diamonds, $9,300, classicwatchny.com. Right: Cartier 41.4 mm Tortue in platinum, $35,600, limited to 200; Gabriela Hearst hand-knit cashmere sweater, $2,500; Officine Générale cotton-poplin shirt, $315.
Breguet 40 mm Classique Ref. 7147 in 18-karat white gold, $37,468; Brioni wool and cashmere overcoat, $12,233, and silk knit crewneck sweater, $2,224; Louis Vuitton wool track pants, $2,120, and wool hooded jacket, $5,002. Right: Patek Philippe 39 mm Calatrava Ref. 6119R-001 in 18-karat rose gold, $52,791.
Piaget 45 mm Andy Warhol in 18-karat rose gold, $69,198. Right: Rolex 29 mm vintage King Midas Ref. 4342 in 18-karat yellow gold, $28,301, classicwatchny.com; Brunello Cucinelli denim shirt, $1,586; Tom Ford cotton chinos, $1,259; Berluti leather belt, $1,132.
Model: Arthur Sales
Grooming: Amanda Wilson
Senior market editor and casting: Luis Campuzano
Photo director: Irene Opezzo
Photo assistant: Alejandro Suarez
Prop stylist: Elizabeth Derwin
