FIRST LOOK: Porsche 911 GT3 - What’s New?
This is the new Porsche 911 GT3. And this is the new Touring version. And this is Porsche GT boss Andy Preuninger, who'll tell us all about it, including the Touring's new back seats. But more of that later. Hello and welcome to the Top Gear YouTube channel, where we're about to look at a new Porsche 911 variant, which generally means a car that looks very much like the old version, except more expensive. But hang on a minute.
Haven't we very recently done the Porsche 911 992.2 version? Well, yes, we have. But it turns out that Porsche is getting a little bit frisky, so instead of waiting a little bit of time before the GT3 gets released, it's already here. So, just to be clear, this latest generation of the 911 in GTS format got a non-plug-in hybrid setup. You know, the one that's been made to increase performance rather than efficiency. But it did cause a bit of a stir, with everyone wondering whether it was the beginning of the end for naturally aspirated engines.
But fear not, because the new GT3 is reassuringly old-school. For a start, no hybrid or turbos. It's a naturally aspirated 4.0-litre flat-six, with about 500bhp and a manual gearbox. That means it will rev to 9,000rpm with the kind of throttle response that will make your right ankle bleed. There are tweaks to the front and rear, including a new front splitter and diffuser, new fins under the floor and new end plates for that big rear wing. And there's liberal use of CFRP, or carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic, in the bodywork and suspension.
And that suspension has bits of GT3 RS in it. Ooh! There are new designs for the wheels and you can have magnesium options – and if you throw them in with the new Weissach package, you can get a new GT3 down to about 1,400kg, which is actually pretty light. Oh, and the Clubsport package is still available. I have to say, white with gold wheels does look pretty special. You can have a six-speed manual or a seven-speed PDK like this one, if you skipped left leg day.
But the really interesting thing is in both gearboxes, the gear ratios are actually 8% shorter, giving you much better mid-range. Oh, yeah. And the manual gearshift lever is actually really short, like the 911 ST, but I have to say, the ergonomics as ever with Porsche, they're pretty much perfect. That means 0 to 62 in 3.4 seconds for the PDK, a bit slower at 3.9 for the manual. Top speeds for both are roughly 195mph.
The steering is said to be much improved, but we'll have to see about that. And like all the latest generation 911s, you get a digital instrument cluster. And it's got some nice new tricks in it. So you can rotate the rev counter so that the top of the red line is actually vertical. But there's some other interesting little bits in this car. The bucket seats are now foldable, so that you can put stuff in the back easier – and you see this little pad in the headrest? Well, that actually comes out, so it's easier to wear a helmet on track outings.
And that's good because GT3s are meant for tracks, right? But what if you wanted all that naturally aspirated hardcore goodness in something that's a little bit less showy? Well, Porsche has you covered. Because, from launch, you can also have a GT3 as a Touring. Well, hello.
So the GT3 Touring is essentially the Secret Service GT3. So you get all the modifications from the normal car but shorn of the more obvious wings. Although you can get a lightweighting package for the GT3 Touring now as well. Now the inside is a bit more comfy, depending on how you spec it. But the big news is that now you can option plus-two seating in the rear.
And I don't know about you, but this is basically a limousine. Now that's something you have to do on normal 911s, but it's the first time you can do it on a GT3 Touring. So the Touring is becoming a much more distinct version of a GT3, but that is actually a story which started here. Because Porsche has actually been using the Touring name for ages. This is a 2.7 RS from 1973,
but back in the day, the Touring name just meant a slightly more comfortable, more sound-insulated kind of street version rather than the really stripped out 2.7s. The modern version of a Touring actually starts here with the 911 R. Because back in 2016, this was essentially a contemporary GT3 RS but without the wings and a manual gearbox. Now this also had a 4.0-litre naturally aspirated boxer engine
with just under 500bhp and that manual gearbox. Now journalists went mad for these cars back in 2016 and I remember testing it at the Red Bull Ring when it was new. And we were there for a week. And I was so enamoured with this car, I thought it was such peak Porsche, that I actually ended up driving it back from Austria, all the way back to the factory in Stuttgart. And yes, I took the long way home. I think I did about 1,000 miles in one.
The interesting thing was, I didn't put the radio or the aircon on all the way home, because it didn't have one. The 911 R was a very light car. It was about 1,370kg wet. And that was because it didn't have very much sound insulation and it made use of lots of carbon fibre in the bodywork and it didn't have the wing. Now, does this sound familiar? Well, it does to me because I think this is the start of the modern Touring story. Originally, a 911 R – just like this one – was a £137,000.
And now, if you go online, you will struggle to find a car for less than three times that. And the same goes for the more recent 911 S/T. And that's because they're limited-run unicorns, bought by people with long associations with their Porsche dealers. Believe me, a lot of Macans and Cayennes are sold to get a foothold on those waiting lists.
But Porsche knows about flippers and canny investors. And as a company, it has a way of mitigating that story by bringing out a Touring GT3 that's got quite a lot of the same vibes as those specials, but without all the limits and silly money. Although, back in 991 era GT3, they cost £111,000.
This 992.2 starts at £157,300 for either model. But if there's one man to ask about that, it's this guy, Andreas Preuninger, the boss of Porsche GT cars. So Andy, you've improved the GT3. How do you improve a GT3 without making it too close to an RS that it becomes a problem? Not a problem for us and it's a simple answer because the next RS is not communicated, it's still in the works, and we have time to invent something to overcompensate that this car got even better on the track. It's always a challenge for us, it's a driving factor for our engineers, for having ideas, for using technology and we don't hold back. So we want to give everything for the car that comes out.
We don't want to put something away for the future. We rather challenge ourselves to work a little harder, and invent more, to overcompensate that and we always did it in the past. - Yeah, but that's crazy! - So the RS was always one step ahead of the older one.
And in the case of the next RS, that might be the same again. So we are not shying away of taking stuff from the current RS to the next GT3. So the interesting thing is you're not shy of making a problem for yourself in creating the next RS.
I like problems. We all do. We need a little bit of pressure and... challenge. Because this car has actually got parts of RS on it, hasn't it? - Absolutely. - So the trailing arms are the teardrop-shaped ones from the RS. - Absolutely. Suspension bits, like the teardrop-shaped control arm, it adds downforce.
- Does it though? Or is it just cool? - It does. It adds 40kg of downforce at top speed. So at 200k… - 195mph? ..that might be maybe even 16 or 17kg. That's a lot. Yeah?
Yeah, that is. But you have to do 180mph. No, no, no, no. For the 40kg you do, yeah? - Ah, OK. - But 17 or 18kg at 200, you're doing it on every straight on every track, so it helps.
I mean, an RS is really a car made for the track, made for the people that are using it on the weekends on track days. It is not a one-trick pony, because it's really great on the road as well, an RS. But its main purpose is to go to the track. It's quite focused. This car is more like a car that you can use on a wider broadband, yeah.
It is just wider for the field of use. It's great on the track. It's not as fast as an RS. It doesn't want to be. But it's great on the road as well. - So the interesting thing now on this generation is that you've got a bit more distance between a basic GT3 and a more track-focused one, because you've got… what have you got now? - We've got the Weissach package. - The Weissach package for the first time on a GT3.
- It's the first time we offer the Weissach package. It has carbon-fibre parts all over the car. - Yeah. And it has lightweight suspension components, For instance, the rear sway bars are carbon fibre, the shear plate is carbon fibre. even the mirrors are 140g lighter. - Vital... - Yes, yes.
- ..to have carbon fibre mirror caps. You have carbon-fibre end plates, carbon fibre... - So these are new as well? The end plates are new? The spoiler is new? There's a new rear bumper? - Yeah. - What material can you have the roll cage in? - The roll cage that comes with the Weissach package is carbon fibre. - Oh, really? - It's 8kg lighter than the Clubsport.
The wheels are the main factor. More than 10kg of weight advantage. They're actually the wheels of the S/T. - OK, so there's an element of it. - And there's this racy interior, like the race tachs on the dashboard and the lightweight door panels, which has this netting here for transportation, putting in your mobile and the carbon-fibre handle. So it's all like 100g here, 100g there.
There's a lightweight carpetry that is 1.7kg lighter and it's all the details, it adds up. And it makes the car more track-ready and more capable on the track as ever.
And it looks it. Look at the carbon-fibre stripe. Have it or not, you can have it painted as well. But yeah, the car has gained a little bit of aggressiveness, subtle, but it looks more racy now. - If you were going to track a GT3 regularly, would you have a PDK or a manual? - For the track, I would always take the PDK. - Why? Because you get one gear more, you've got a seven-speed instead of a six-speed, you've got just a shorter ratio and, I mean, the shifting times. I mean, if you're head-to-head with a manual car and you've got a long straight and you have to shift three times, the advantage in the timing of the shifting makes exactly one car length.
So you're ahead on the next curve, story told. Wow! Because I know that the PDK is quicker to 62mph, 100kph, by 0.4 of a second. It doesn't sound like a lot, but in that short space of time... Three gear changes side by side and you always gain a third of a car length just because you can't shift as quick as a PDK. Is a manual lighter, though? The manual is 20kg lighter, so the manual gearbox is a lot lighter for the driver's car. If I want to take the Touring on a weekend to enjoy driving, go driving just for the sake of driving, I'd always opt for the manual.
It depends on what you want to do with the car. So the car offers a huge bandwidth, depending on what the customer wants. Track the car or even use the car on a daily basis. If you're in a traffic jam, it's a lot easier to have a PDK. You don't have to clutch around all the time. But if you want a driver's car, if you want the full...
the full involvement, I would say, my personal advice is go manual. But this is making the GT3 have much more bandwidth within its own brand, if you know what I mean. - Because you've got the Secret Service version. - Yep.
The kind of James Bond thing. It's not an Aston. - No. I just realised that.
I shouldn't have said James Bond! (LAUGHS) - It doesn't want to be one. I meant that kind of, you know... that's a relatively subtle car. It's very pure. - It's elegant. It's down-to-earth. Nobody will object if you're driving along in that. So it's just another Porsche.
- And now has four seats as an option. - Yeah, it has four seats. You can take the kids. You can take... Well, small kids, but you can still take the kids. And then you've got the options on this car of making it more track-focused. So the distance between Touring and full-on Weissach-pack GT3 is much greater.
- It is. - Because that's got no cage. If you spec it accordingly, but you can order the Touring as well with a PDK. And with a lightweight package. And with a lightweight package that has the magnesium wheels. It's similar to the Weissach package of that car, but there's always the magnesium wheels included in the Leichtbau package. This is just another option. - But that's getting confusing.
Because then you can have a lightweight Touring, but you can have a Clubsport GT3, And then, I don't know which one I want. That's the problem. This is a small, a little bit… You can spec it to an S/T side, kind of, and you can spec this a little bit more to the RS. - Gotcha. So that's the directions they can pull in. - Yeah. So is that just an S/T for people who couldn't get an S/T? Or is an S/T still a different vibe? Maybe this is the everyday car for the S/T owner that wants to keep his car in the garage.
Honestly, it's a driver's car, it's manual, it has the same gearing than an S/T, it has even the same engine. Is it an S/T? No, it's not. Is it close? Yeah, maybe. What percentage? Is it 80% of an S/T? Is it 90% of an S/T? Oh, wow.
Because at the moment, it's only about half the price, a third of the price of an S/T. I would say it's 85%. So it's pretty close, but an S/T still got that... - S/T-ism. - Yeah, yeah. It still has that.
- I mean, the S/T is a super lightweight, super limited, super hardcore car. If I would have to make the decision to go from, let's say, Stuttgart to Munich and back in a day, I think I'd take that one. I would have a lot of fun, but my ears would be still on.
And if I would need a car just for the sake of driving, just to go out, like you use a motorcycle, I'd take the S/T. So, but this is not my real options because... - Because you're a normal human being. - In my garage at home it's neither, but I can use them from the car pool, which is great sometimes.
But it's not an S/T, it doesn't want to be an S/T, but it's definitely a choice for somebody that is lusting for an S/T, couldn't get one, spec it accordingly, you've got something that's really close. - Pretty special. - Yeah. - What I'm trying to say is, in 2024, is a GT3 Touring a better car than a 911 R, because of eight years of progress? Better car for what, you know? This is a car with four seats that you can use almost as a daily driver and not getting rid of the grin on your face because you have a race-tech technology on the car and nobody notices. And you really can use it on a daily basis.
911 R is a hardcore driver's car that you take out to enjoy driving as you would if you take your motorcycle. But it would be tiring after four or five hours, which isn't the case in that one. So, for longer journeys, for longer time in the car, this might be the better car even. Does it make that a better car? I don't think so. Depends on what you want to do with it. But if you ask me, would I prefer to drive around in a 911 R or in this one, I would take this one.
Yeah, so it's just a matter of time really and improvements over time. Yeah, yeah. Definitely. What happens when... Because getting the 4.0-litre to meet emissions regulation this time around must have been hellish.
Yeah, that was the main problem or the main challenge in the whole development, because emissions go on and on and on and between the first generation, the second generation now, there's in some values that you have to comply to, it's 40% less. - 40%? - 40% less. So if you look at the amount of particles in the exhaust gas, it's way stricter than it has been. So for us it was a challenge.
Can we realise an engine that feels the same as a gen one – high revving, only atmospherical, typical GT3, rewarding drive, this noise, this viscerality. Is it possible? And luckily and fortunately, we found a way. It is, yeah? - But that's without turbocharging… - But this is the reason, to be perfectly frank with you, that it doesn't have more horsepower than its predecessor. - Yeah. - But it has an 8% shorter gearing.
What does it tell you? So… - That's the way you've made it up… - Additional zing on the car and so we compensate for that. We lose some top speed, but I couldn't care less. It's not the party trick of a GT3 anyway to go in a straight line. A straight line is the connection between two curves. And this is where the car… This is what the car stands for. I always love it when you say that.
You've always said that about your 911s. - Yeah, but it's the truth. For me personally, it's relatively boring to go in one direction, no matter how fast the car accelerates, no matter how fast you can go on top speed. - See, the thing is, I think people, when 992 came out, 992.2, and there was T-Hybrid for GTS and turbos on the other cars, everyone looked to GT3 and thought, it's going to have a turbo or a T-Hybrid. I know. And everyone panicked because GT3 has always been naturally aspirated.
See? That's why we didn't do it. And we talked a lot with customers about this. And the number one wish was always keep it light, keep it analogue, as analogue as possible, keep it high revving, keep the sound, keep the sound.
And yes, it would accelerate faster on a straight line with an electric motor attached, but it would weigh a lot more and you would feel it in the curves. Would I think we would be ready for an electrical GT car in the next five years? I would clearly say no. - Yeah. Yeah, and I'm 58 now. So make your maths yourself.
So maybe that's not something... - You'll be there. - Maybe that's not something that I will lead. - Yes, you will. Maybe I'm sitting on my rocking chair and... - Drinking whisky. - I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. In all seriousness, I think electrification is necessary. I think we're doing a great job at Porsche to offer both.
But this is the complete other side of the parliament. It's the only car, one of the very few cars that has only an atmospherical engine, that offers a six-speed gearbox. It is the driver's car that lives with the technology that we have right now to overcompensate or to compensate for all these legislational problems. It's a challenge, but it has a right to be there and we're doing it for a special kind of customer, and it's a special kind of car. And I'm trying heavily to concentrate exactly on that for the next five years as well with my team.
And after that, we'll see. - Every time you have launched a car, you kept something back, so that when I turned up to actually see it with you, there was a little bit more. Now, I was trying to figure out what you'd kept back. Was it the fact that the Touring had four seats? Was it the fact that it had a twist starter instead of the push button of the 992.2?
Which bit have you been secretly thinking, this is a lovely detail on this car? Or was it the foldable bucket seat? I mean, there's lots of things like the foldable bucket seats or the headrest that you can take out. Because we talked to the customer and said, "Oh, I would like to have a seat that can live better with me wearing a helmet because I'm almost bumping on the headrest... " - So, that's that bit, isn't it? And look at this, I'm just getting in. So, that's the seat pad in the headrest. By the push of a button, I can take out the headrest and free up some space, some package space for the helmet. And then you can sit upright and you don't have these annoying bumps all the time.
So, this is just something small and something little... - And then, that bucket seat... - ..but it helps the driver. ..is now, that's now a foldable bucket seat. Yeah. That's a foldable bucket seat that allows you the access of the rear seats, which are important because a GT3 needs to have a bucket seat. It's an option only, but if you tick one box, tick the seats.
- So that's driven by customers. - Yeah. - That is your customer saying to you, I need those two seats. - Absolutely. Absolutely. And driven by the team and by me. I don't like starting buttons, to be perfectly honest with you.
So we have still this key lookalike switch here. We kept that. And another thing that is very important to me, all these assistance systems that you need, the assistance by law... - They're legal, aren't they? ..because you can't homologate the car differently otherwise. Like the lane change assist, the speed warning, everything. And we have one switch here... - Ah, just show me that.
- You can switch them off with two small movements of the hand. And this is really something that helps, especially when you're on the track or when you just want driving that is not intervened by anything. We have a digital dash now, but I think we made it a... - Boo! No, it's not boo. I was totally against it and I said, "Oh no, I want to keep my analogue tach." Actually, if you look at this, if I pull this button, then you can turn the tach around like in old race cars. - Like an old race car, yeah, I was going to say.
You have the maximum rev on top, you know. That's why in the historical race cars, they turned around their tach to align it… - Does it still have a shift light? Yeah, it still has a shift light, which is then here. It's a little bit differently arranged than if you have it the normal way. You see here the shift lights are on both sides when you have the normal version.
But we had to change this for the race view because then you've got the shift light a bit bigger, only on the right-hand side, and the fuel gauge as well. 15 years or 10 years ago, I would have chosen the wing car. Now I would choose something as close to an S/T as possible – and I'm sitting in it. [Tom] So there's some insight into the new GT3 from a man who really knows.
There is the vague feeling that the endless march of new 911 versions is only really a set-up to sell, well, endless new 911s, which isn't that surprising for a car company, but it can get confusing. But the fact remains that even if there are ultimate 911s out there, cars like the GT3 offer 85% of the experience without the sense of superiority, which I kinda like. Both the straight GT3 and Touring cost £157,300 in the UK, which is more than a 911 R when it was new, with the Weissach package at £19,530 or £15,597 without the roll cage. And then there's the lightweight package for the Touring at £29,225, so you can up the cost considerably.
So which would you have? Wings and all the jingle-jangle, or a GT3 Touring that slips by almost unnoticed? Let me know.
2024-10-20 05:22
