Packed with racing technology, Porsche’s 911 GT3 RS provides plenty of reasons to get excited in the lead-up to its arrival on our shores in the autumn.
By Kyle Fortune
In a world racing to electrification, the GT3 RS’s high revving, 386kW six-cylinder engine is something of a last hurrah to internal combustion.
The RS’s speed, then, is not gained thanks to ever greater power but instead by cleverer means of exploiting and shaping the air moving over, under and through the car. Indeed, the attention to aerodynamic detail throughout is astonishing.
Well and truly warranting the RS badge, for Rennsport (or racing), this car is more obviously linked to Porsche’s track cars than ever before.
Any RS model is special–lighter, sharper, more track focused, with a direct line to the 1973 Carrera RS–but the design approach here is pure. Increasingly strict emissions and economy regulations have put an end to the days of the GT3 RS improving its lap times by upping output. There is more power but it’s a tiny gain.
The naturally aspirated four-litre flat-six is essentially a racing engine civilised for the road. That engine will rev to 9000rpm and is rightfully regarded as one of the best produced, which goes some way to explain the global clamour for each new iteration of the GT3 RS.
It isn’t the fastest car in Porsche’s lineup in terms of acceleration (0 to 100km/h in 3.2 seconds) or top speed (296km/h). Other 911s, notably the Turbo, can tear up to 100km/h with more eye-widening acceleration, while the RS’s understudy, the GT3, boasts a higher top speed if you’re intent on maxing it out on the Autobahn.
Instead, the RS is intent on chasing lap times using active aerodynamics, adding as much as 860kg of downforce to push it onto the Autobahn.
That enables the car, on road tyres, to corner with the same force that Porsche’s racing cars do on slick racing rubber. That’s an incredible achievement, and one that dictates its shape very obviously.
That enables the car, on road tyres, to corner with the same force that Porsche’s racing cars do on slick racing rubber. That’s an incredible achievement, and one that dictates its shape very obviously.
It’s impossible to miss the huge roof-surpassing wing mounted on the rear, though before the air reaches that feature it has already been cajoled, exploited and managed over the front of the car, around the sides and underneath.
Pictures cannot convey the GT3 RS’s form correctly, it is only by seeing one up close that you can fully comprehend its purposeful beauty and revel in the detail.
As for the driving experience, connection, response and feel are king. These cars are all immediacy and intent, every new RS promising more of that addictive hit.
With every release there is an expectation that it’ll be impossible to better what has come before, yet Porsche always succeeds in doing so.
Here, rather than taking the usual incremental gain, we have taken an evolutionary leap.
Here, rather than taking the usual incremental gain, we have taken an evolutionary leap.
This sense not only arises from the car’s aero focus but also from the configurability of its many driver systems. You can be a race engineer and driver in this car, with the possibility to adjust the suspension, electronic differential and traction and stability settings to your preference, or the circumstances of the track you’re driving it on.
Immersive and engaging, the RS drives like nothing else on road or track; perhaps a case of Porsche going all-in with its most finely honed 911 experience before peak oil dictates a different direction. The result is peak sports car. Priced from $500,200, this RS really is that good, and then some.