FIRSTDRIVE PORSCHE 911 GT3:PORSCHE'S 911 range offers more choice to the sportscar driver than a sweet shop does to the average 10 year old. The myriad of models available is quite bewildering, from the most basic "entry-level" Carrera 2 right up to the wild and super-exclusive GT2, writes KYLE FORTUNE
The sweetest of all though has always been Porsche’s lightweight models, and in recent years that’s meant the GT3. A car built out of necessity rather than to fill a particular niche in a marketing department’s model line-up, the GT3 exists to allow the 911 to go racing. Successfully. Very successfully, actually.
Racing’s rule makers allow Porsche to create a car that’s the stuff of enthusiastic car drivers’ dreams. Not only is the GT3 the most extreme, intense and visceral version of the 911 you can buy, it’s also pretty cheap. For about the same money as you’ll spend on a two-pedal, paddle-shift auto-equipped 911 Carrera 4 S Cabriolet you can have this lightened, track-honed machine.
The GT3’s extreme focus used to be its downfall, resulting in brilliant, but often compromised, road cars. With the new one Porsche has refined out some of the more challenging aspects of GT3 ownership and created a road car that offers few compromises.
That is unless you’ve opted for the 10kg, fixed-back lightweight seats. They’re very tight for all but slender Nomex-suited racing drivers. Best then to save the cost and use the cash on some of the other options. A key one is the front axle lift kit, the Porsche Active Suspension Management system that raises the GT3’s tarmac-scraping nose by 30mm at the press of a button. It allows you to avoid annoying repeat visits to your local Porsche centre to replace the front splitter’s leading edge after removing it on speed bumps, garage ramps and the likes.
That splitter is part of the car’s revised aerodynamics package that allows this new car significantly increased downforce – not that you’re ever likely to feel the effects on the road.
What you will notice is the increase in engine capacity, with the GT3’s old 3.6-litre unit swelling by 200cc to 3.8-litres. Output rises by 20bhp to 429bhp, enough to drop the GT3’s 0-100km/h time to 4.1 seconds and increase its top speed to 312km/h. Not that the old car was ever slow, mind.
The increased capacity subtly changes the motorsport-derived, high-revving unit’s character. It’s still just as intense and rev-hungry, its red-line actually increasing to a lofty 8,500rpm, but its low-speed tractability makes it a friendlier, less frenetic companion around town. That’s key to the GT3’s greater user-friendliness – this racer is just as happy to trickle through traffic at under 2,000rpm as it is tackling the Eau Rouge at Spa Francorchamps with that 3.8-litre unit screaming up at its red-line.
It’s an incredible engine; there’s no point in its rev range where it feels slow; there’s never any delay in response when you push the accelerator. Fiercely accelerative, each new gear selected by the brilliantly-mechanical and precise six-speed manual results in the GT3 lunging forward with ever-increasing intensity. At an indicated 280km/h section of Germany’s unrestricted autobahn the GT3 is still able to pull with the sort of force that most cars can’t muster below 100km/h.
The gardaí might frown upon you exploiting the GT3’s phenomenal high speed stability here in Ireland, though the GT3 is more than merely a straight-line missile; it’s weapons grade in the bends too. With its Michelin Pilot Sport tyres fitted to unique single-nut lightweight alloy wheels, lower, stiffer suspension and GT3-honed traction and stability systems, Porsche’s motorsport homologation machine delivers otherworldly competence on the road.
The steering offers the sort of brilliant, information-rich feel that allows you to place its nose wherever you want it.
There’s no slack to its response either; the slightest input to the Alcantara-rimmed wheel resulting in an instant, incisive reaction to the GT3’s trajectory. What’s remarkable is that it’s not fidgety or nervous, the ride too managing to avoid fussiness, despite its focus.
Naturally, a car as specific in its purpose is stiff, but the Porsche Active Suspension Management provides the roll-free stance and mesmerising handling in its standard setting without skipping over bumps and crashing into potholes. There’s a stiffer option available by pressing a damper icon-ed button on the dash, but the most extreme damper setting only destroys the GT3’s remarkable on-road composure.
It’s probably sociable to avoid pressing the Sport button beside the damper item that opens up butterfly flaps in the car’s exhaust to increase its low-rev flexibility. Porsche categorically denies it’s a “noise” button, but it can say what it likes, the deeper, more intense flat-six beat resonating in the GT3’s seat-free rear cabin telling a completely different story. Few cars will be quicker on road or track, the GT3 taking all the best parts of the 911 and turning them up several degrees in intensity. In this ever more sanitised world the beautifully weighted, incisive and uncorrupted steering, the crisp engine response and sensational handling allowing you to enjoy the purest 911 experience ever.
The traction and stability systems are switchable, giving you the choice of high threshold safety nets on the road or complete control on the track with corners exited at whatever angle of departure you like.
As ever Porsche allows you to add to the GT3, with kit like Porsche Active Drivetrain Mounts and Porsche Ceramic Composite Brakes, communication and navigation options and a free Clubsport option that adds a half rollcage in the rear and a fire extinguisher, battery isolator switch and racing seatbelts for dealer fit after delivery.
Really, nothing else is necessary – except perhaps that front axle lifting kit. For us, the GT3 is best in its standard guise. Actually, it’s the best 911 Porsche builds, which pretty much makes it the best sports car money can buy.
Factfile Porsche 911 GT3
Engine:3.8-litre six-cylinder petrol
Peak power:429bhp @ 7,600rpm
Peak torque:429Nm @ 6,250rpm
Transmission:six-speed manual, rear-wheel-drive
0-100km/h:4.1 seconds
Top speed:312km/h
CO2 emissions:298g/km
Combined cycle fuel economy:12.6l/100km
Price:approx €151,500