Ultra-Rare Porsche 911 GT1 Cruises Around Public Roads in Italy
It isn’t every day that we see a Porsche 911 GT1 in any setting, but this one had a massive crowd whipping their phones out as it drove by.
The Porsche 911 GT1 has easily one of the coolest histories of any road-going machine, albeit one that was built specifically to meet homologation rules, which required that the automaker build at least 25 street-legal examples of its new race car to qualify. Today, as one might imagine, this incredibly rare machine is an equally rare sight, save for museums and stashed away in private collections. However, this particular Porsche 911 GT1 was recently spotted cruising around public roads in Italy by the YouTube channel Varryx.
The racing version of the road-legal Porsche 911 GT1 – otherwise known as the ‘StraĂźenversion” – went on to enjoy tremendous success on the track, making this program worthwhile. Though it bore the 911 moniker, it wasn’t very closely related to that iconic model, sharing only headlights and taillights with its regular brethren. Underneath, the GT1 utilized a front chassis setup based on the 993, while the rear subframe was derived from the 962C racer.
That latter model also provide the GT1’s water-cooled, twin-turbocharged 3.2-liter flat-six, which is longitudinally-mounted in a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. That engine pumped out a healthy 592 horsepower – quite substantial for the time – though the street-legal version was detuned a bit to meet European emissions standards, meaning that it generated 536 horsepower. Regardless, performance was brisk, with 0-62 mph taking around 3.9 seconds, while the car could reach 191 mph at the top end.
As far as looks go, 23 of the 25 homologated GT1s built featured 996-style headlights, while two prototypes wore units from the 993. Most of that group left the factory wearing Arctic Silver (as seen here) or Fern White paint, though three were finished in Polar Silver, Indian Red, and Pastel Yellow.
This particular 911 GT1 was spotted hanging out at Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Lake Como, Italy, after which it heads out for a short drive with many adoring fans taking their phones out and recording the action. This type of reaction is both understandable and warranted, however – after all, when was the last time you got passed by a Porsche 911 GT1 out on the roads?
Join the Rennlist forums!
