I read your review with interest and as always these things are personal. I am lucky enough to have a basalt black 997 turbo manual, a Lamborghini Gallardo (manual) and a ferrari 430 F1 as well as an uprated E60 M5. With regard to your point about the 997 now not having a performace advantage I would not agree. My experience driving all the cars regularly is that the turbo is the quickest by some margin in the real world particualarly in any weather other than bone dry. Even in the dry however it has the beating of the ferrari and the lamborghini. I love the turbo but would say that both the Lambo and Ferrai are better handling cars on the road (cant comment on the track as dont track my cars) and the ferrari in particular is much sharper. Despite in my view definitely being slower the Lambo has a real feeling of power and is a beautifully balanced car , when the turbo is scrabbling to sort out a driver mistake (and it does it magnificently) you are barely aware of it in the Lambo. Of the three the ferrari rewards for pure passion and both the ferrai and Lambo sound terrific. My only real fault with the turbo is the sound which is a material part of the enjoyment for any car enthusiast and I am getting a new tubi sports exhaust fitted to the turbo next week hopefully to rectify that. All in all however the most amazing of my cars is still the M5 mine is uprated to 550Bhp and for Pounds60k for daily transport is more of an achievement than my other cars despite the fact it is obviously the last to be taken on a road trip.
Very helpful forum thanks.