Porsche’s GT Cars Are the Most Important in the Entire Lineup
It is not the technically advanced Taycan or the cash cow SUVs but the products of Porsche’s GT-Car division that set the standard.
If in your man cave, or garage or office you have any Porsche posters hanging, they are probably of a 911. Or perhaps a 356 or a racing car of some sort. Chances are you do not have any Porsche SUV or electric powered sedans on your wall. That is not to slight those models. The Macan is a great crossover and electric power is the future. However, the Porsche legend was built on racing and sports cars. In the last twenty years, the Porsche cars that represented this the best are those coming from the house that Andreas Preuninger built. This covers everything from the 996 GT3 and 997 GT3 cars through the 991 GT2 RS and the just announced 992 GT3.
Recently Jason Cammisa dropped a video on the Hagerty YouTube channel. In this video Cammisa makes the case for why these cars are so important. He walks us through each wonderful iteration of these cars. It is a fascinating look back at some of the best cars Porsche has ever produced. On top of that there is nearly ten minutes of bonus coverage with the cars doing laps and acceleration runs. It is something you don’t want to miss.
Cammisa begins stating his case by pointing out that Porsche, like all businesses, is in it to make money. The venerable 911 needs to appeal to the old people that can afford them, and old people want luxury. “As the 911 edges nearer and nearer to a Panamera coupe, it’s the GT models that have gradually taken over as the 911s image maker.” Says Cammisa. It may be a bit of a stretch to blame just the old folks for the push towards luxury. Do you think any teenager wants a car today that doesn’t have Apple Car Play and HD radio? The car market in general has spoiled car buyers, and everyone now expects certain luxury and safety features in their cars. Heck a Kia Rio has an 8-inch touch screen, six airbags, lane following assist and keyless entry.
However, Cammisa does have a point in that a regular 911 Carrera today is not the raw and pure sports car it was 30 years ago. If you want the purest sports car feel, then you need to step up to the world of Porsche GT division cars. These cars were born out of racing. The first GT3 came with the 996 generation, and it was named from the racing class in which it competed. In order to compete Porsche needed to build 200 street versions and the GT3 RS was born. A car that nobody at Porsche thought would sell. Well, when the order books opened up the requests came flooding in. “Porsche made as many as they could, but they had to pull the plug after like 670 units. All of the tooling for the special parts wore out. They were only designed to build 200.” Explains Cammisa.
This success led to a GT3 for the 997 series cars. The pinnacle came with the RS 4.0. How good was the RS 4.0? According to Cammisa: “The steering? Perfect. The brakes? Perfect. The shifter? Perfect. The chassis balance? Perfect.” It remains one of the best cars that Porsche ever made and one of the best driving cars in history. When the Nissan GT-R beat the Porsche GT3 around the Nürburgring that meant war. Porsche bolted a couple of turbos to the GT3 and the GT2 RS was born. Its sole mission was to beat the GT-R. In fact, it was dubbed project 727 because that was the lap time it had to beat. The 620 horsepower GT2 RS was a bit of an overachiever. It ended up putting down a 7:18 lap time. Good thing they didn’t call it project 718. What would the current Boxster/Cayman have been called?
Up next is the 991 generation. This time the GT3 was met with some harsh criticism. Most of that criticism was fired at the transmission. For the first time the GT3 came in automatic only. The pursuit of speed trumped driver involvement. Buyers were so upset that every GT3 Porsche could build was immediately bought and often for well over MSRP. So, sales were not impacted, however, the voices were heard. Porsche released the very limited 911R. This offered the GT3 with a manual transmission and some other upgrades. It was another car that Porsche didn’t think would sell, so they offered it to the buyers of the 918 Spyder hypercar. Naturally, nearly everyone bought a 911R, and it is still a rare car to find today. However, the 991.2 GT3 did come back with a manual transmission and finally the pursuits were happy.
Closing out the 991 generation is the bonkers 991.2 GT2 RS. Remember that old lap record time of 7:27? The GT2 RS beat it by 40 seconds! That was a recurring theme in the GT2 RS. It basically set a new lap record on each track it would visit. The car was built for speed and proudly carried on the Porsche GT car tradition. Porsche sells a lot of great cars, and SUVs as well. However, Cammisa sums it best when he says: “The 911s we really want all say GT on the back.” We agree.
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