http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/dri...cle7024270.ece

 

This new Porsche 911 GT3 RS is not the most powerful 911 you can buy, nor the fastest. Nor is it the most expensive or lavishly equipped. What it is is the most exciting road car Porsche has made. Like most of the best Porsches, this stripped-out, ultra-light supercar embraces the doctrine that less is more. It has no back seats, the rear screen is Perspex and the interior door handles are cord. Sound insulation is notable by its absence. Flappy paddles? Turbochargers? Four-wheel-drive systems? Nope. Even the cupholders have gone.

If you want options, you can lose the stereo and air-con at no cost (how generous) to save a few more precious grams. A lithium-ion battery will save you 10kg. A roll cage, plumbing for a fire extinguisher and flame-resistant upholstery are standard.
The GT3 RS can truly call itself a race car for the road. Indeed many of its features, such as the fully adjustable suspension and reworked aerodynamics, are geared towards competition. The 3.8-litre flat-six engine — like the rest of the car — is built by Porsche’s motor-sports department, not alongside normal, stockbroker-spec 911s. It has an air induction system that helps it to put out an extra 15bhp, and the gear ratios have been lowered to pep up the acceleration
For £86,064 Porsche will build you a normal GT3, which most drivers would love for the rest of time. The RS costs almost £20,000 more. It seems a lot for a little, but then this is a car for fanatics. It doesn’t address the open road like most cars; it prefers to attack it. The engine is loud and sharp enough in your ears to make you feel like a fighter pilot. The delivery of its performance is not effortless like a 911 Turbo’s — the GT3 RS makes you work hard to keep up with its appetite for gears. You have only to point it at a bend to know the RS’s real home is the track: the grip from its semi-race-tread Michelin tyres is as magnificent on a dry road as it is scarily deficient in the wet. If this car were a battlefield general, it wouldn’t even know what a prisoner was.
Having driven both, I can confirm a standard GT3 does 97% of the job the RS does, for 80% of the money. But of course you want Porsche’s ultimate driving machine, and this is it. The experience it offers is unforgettable. This is Porsche at it best.

 

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