First, it’s larger. At 176.8 inches long, the new 911 (inside Porsche, its code name is 991) is a couple of inches longer than a 2012 Chevrolet Corvette and more than a foot longer than the air-cooled original 911. It’s also an inch longer on a 3.9-inch longer wheelbase, and a bit wider, than the 997-series 911 it is systematically replacing. Other versions — including the Turbo, all-wheel-drive and a hybrid — will follow, all part of Porsche’s strategy to suck every last dime out of Jerry Seinfeld’s bank account.

The new 911 isn’t a big car, and the perfectly stitched interior is still an intimate space, but it’s nowhere near small.

Despite those provocatively swollen dimensions, the 2012 Carrera S tops out at a sort-of-svelte 3,075 pounds — about 100 pounds less than the comparable previous-generation model. Credit for the modest weight goes to the new composite body structure, which uses steel and aluminum where each metal’s virtues can be exploited. So the barely stressed door skins, hood, deck lid, roof and floor are made of lightweight aluminum; steel is used in the rear fenders, center tunnel, cross-member and nose.

To this robust structure is bolted a suspension system consisting of MacPherson struts up front and a multilink system made of aluminum forgings in the back. The suspension’s links are so elegantly sculptured that owners will want to put the car up on jack stands at the end of each day and remove the huge 20-inch wheels just to stare.

The lesser 911 Carrera coupe ($83,050) gets a 3.4-liter version of Porsche’s now familiar water-cooled flat 6. Now with direct injection and an aggressive 12.5:1 compression ratio, it’s rated by Porsche at 350 horsepower. It comes bolted to either a new 7-speed version of the dual-clutch Porsche Doppelkupplung (PDK) paddle-shifting automated transmission or the standard 7-speed manual that’s essentially a PDK shorn of one clutch and its auto-shifting functions.