The 2.5 Year Journey to a 2016 Porsche 911 GT3 RS
Porsche’s 500 horsepower 911 GT3 RS is regarded by many as the ultimate sports car, so imagine my surprise and delight when I saw a photo of an Ultraviolet 2016Â GT3 RS being unloaded at my friend’s house.
Unfortunately for me, the owner of the car, Tre, lives on the opposite coast, so I won’t be able to see the “Grape Jelly Bean” in person any time soon, but that didn’t stop me (and everyone else) from asking him how he was able to score this beast of a track car, considering that they’re basically sold out everywhere.
Tre’s journey started almost three years ago in the summer of 2013 with a visit to his then-local dealership, Porsche of San Antonio, to inquire about a GT3 RS. The 991 GT3 had only been announced a few months prior, and there were no details on an RS version, let alone a waiting list.
So what does Tre do? He puts down a deposit for a car that doesn’t exist at a dealership that’s not guaranteed to have any allocations of said non-existent car. But there was no denying that he was the first in line!
It took Porsche another 19 months (March 2015) to finally reveal the 991 GT3 RS at the Geneva International Motor Show, and it prompted Tre to check in with the dealership. Alas, it was still too early because Porsche North America had yet to apportion the 600 – 700 GT3 RS’s that were destined for the U.S.
And to complicate things further, the 918 Spyder VIP program gives the approximately 300 U.S. 918 owners the first right of refusal on limited production models for up to 10 years after their initial 918 purchase. Porsche of San Antonio did sell one 918, and that owner elected to order a GT3 RS in Lava Orange.
Things seemed uncertain, but on March 19, 2015, Tre received an email informing him that he had received a 4th-quarter build allocation! This was the second and last allocation for Porsche San Antonio — bad news for the 15 other people on the waiting list.
In November of 2015, two years and three months after Tre’s initial deposit, his Ultraviolet/Lava Orange GT3 RS began its trek down the production line.
The car arrived in San Antonio on January 8, 2016 and went straight into the capable hands of Benjamin Kenney at XPEL Technologies’ headquarters to be wrapped in paint protection film.
Intercity Lines was tasked with transporting the RS to the east coast, and on January 22nd, Tre finally took delivery of his very first Porsche sports car — right in the middle of the fourth worst winter storm in history.
It’ll be just a couple more months before Tre will be able to properly enjoy his new track toy, but this chapter of his GT3 RS adventure has come to a close.
Kudos to Porsche San Antonio representative Oscar Garcia for working patiently and diligently for two and a half years on the sale of a single car — if that’s not customer service, I don’t know what is!
Photos courtesy XPEL and Tre.
