COVER Porsche 911 GT3 RS

Porsche 911 GT3 RS

FIRSTDRIVE Aero tweaks define latest version of iconic sports car

Steve Sutcliffe

mail@autoexpress.co.uk

MOST Porsches, especially quicker 911s, tend to be defined by their engines. Not so the new £178,500 992 GT3 RS. For, despite being propelled by one of the all-time great flat-six motors – one that revs to an ear-splitting 9,000rpm and produces 518bhp in the process – the latest RS is actually defined by its aerodynamics.

At its top speed of 184mph (14mph lower than a regular GT3’s due to shorter gearing), the RS produces a quite staggering 860kg of downforce when its electronically adjustable rear wing is fully deployed. It also features two new underbody flaps to balance that gigantic wing.

So although that still-spectacular engine has new cams and generates a touch more power than a regular GT3’s to give an even sharper 0-62mph time of just 3.2 seconds, the RS makes its biggest moves forwards courtesy of the grip it generates and via the extra speed it can carry though corners.

It’s a bold and typically interesting philosophy that Porsche has embraced here – to eschew the pursuit of pure horsepower and find other ways of making the RS faster

and more exciting to drive. The truth is, the manufacturer knew it couldn’t squeeze much more power out of its 4.0-litre flat-six; in the end it conjured another 14bhp. Instead, along with the aero, chassis upgrades achieve the goal. You can individually adjust the settings for the bump and rebound characteristics of the dampers through eight different stages, the preload and on-power load settings for the differential, tweak the traction and stability control systems individually, plus dial up the shift speeds of the dual-clutch gearbox. And that’s before you go anywhere near the button marked DRS, which allows you to alter the angle of that huge rear wing to adjust the level of downforce and drag. As in the regular GT3, there are Normal, Sport and Track drive modes to choose from. But only in Track mode do you get full use of all the toys. In Normal, everything defaults to a nice, predictable factory setting. If it all seems like way too much to get your head around, don’t fret, because in practice, the RS is nowhere near as bamboozling to drive as you might think. Not to begin with, and unless you’re seeking to extract the last “In practice, the GT3 RS is nowhere near as bamboozling to drive as you might think”