PORSCHE Lovers

[Gast]

Man die kuipjes zijn toch zo zalig.

[Porker]

“Think the GT3 Is Serious? Prepare To Think Again”

- by Andrew Frankel, Contributor

Published: 16 February 2010

There is probably only one person on the planet who considered the last Porsche 911 GT3 RS a kindergarten car, but he is the person who mattered most. That would be Andreas Preuninger, manager of Porsche's department of high-performance cars, the man charged with creating the RS's replacement.

Preuninger has directed the GT3 program since the model was launched in 1999, and he and the handful of race engineers who are in charge of developing the 911 GT3 RS, 911 GT3 and 911 Porsche Cup models were stung by complaints from customers that the previous-generation 911 GT3 RS offered an insufficient margin of track-tough performance over the already fairly feisty standard GT3.

So Preuninger and his team of happy helpers at Porsche's motorsports division in Stuttgart went to work to make sure the 2010 Porsche 911 GT3 RS would never suffer such criticism.

And when those guys go to work, they go to work.

Speed Engineering

We could tell you about every last detail that has transformed the 2010 Porsche 911 GT3 into the 2010 Porsche 911 GT3 RS, but if you're like us, you're more interested in driving one than building one.

But we should tell you that the RS model now has more power than the GT3 equivalent, which means 450 horsepower at 7,900 rpm instead of 435 hp at 7,600 rpm, and all this from a 3.8-liter six-cylinder engine without a turbo in sight. As before, a short-throw six-speed manual transmission is the standard gearbox (there are some delightfully old-fashioned views about shift paddles and automated transmissions inside Porsche's motorsport department), but the first five gears have ratios that are 11 percent shorter and 6th gear has a ratio that's 5 percent. As a result, the 192-mph top speed of the GT3 RS is slower than that of the GT3, yet only by 2 mph.

An RS typically has a wider rear track for more cornering grip, but now the front track is wider, too. There are 325/30ZR19 tires in the rear on rims that are 12 inches wide and 245/35R19 tires in the front on rims that are 9 inches wide. There's also a wider range of adjustment for the front and rear antiroll bars, so you can fine-tune the RS's handling for the track. Stability control has been included for the first time on a GT3 RS, although it's calibrated for the track and can be disabled independent of the traction control. The only major mechanical items left untouched are the GT3's massive brakes, which were developed from the start with RS levels of performance in mind.

The 2010 Porsche 911 GT3 RS carries an all-new aerodynamics package for the track-oriented environment it's intended to live in, with a yet-larger carbon-fiber rear wing that now generates 374 pounds of downforce at 186 mph — and this is real downforce, not just reduced lift. The bodywork has been widened at the rear by 1.7 inches to accommodate the RS model's customary wider rear track, and now of course the front bodywork is wider to suit the increased front track as well.

The RS is 55 pounds lighter than the GT3, a total achieved ounce by ounce thanks to a plastic rear window, lightweight door panels, a titanium exhaust system, a single-mass flywheel and a carbon-fiber engine cover. If you want to reduce weight even further, you can go to the RS's options list, which includes carbon-fiber seats, bi-xenon headlights and a delete code for the radio and air-conditioning. All in all, the RS weighs 3,020 pounds or, put another way, a little less than a two-door VW GTI but with well over twice the power.

Quite Quick, Then?

Yes, but that's hardly the point. If all you're interested in is straight-line performance on par with an artillery shell, buy the 2010 Porsche 911 Turbo. It's faster still than the GT3 RS and way more civilized.

Ever since 1973, RS models of the 911 have been about total performance, not just acceleration or even just braking and cornering. The RS is also about how the car sounds and feels, and the 2010 example carries this principle further than ever. Hard to believe though it might be, the ability of the Porsche 911 GT3 RS to hit 60 mph from a standstill in 4 seconds flat is, in fact, the least impressive aspect of its performance.

Thanks to those titanium exhaust pipes and the plastic rear window, the engine sounds as if it's joined you in the cabin, and after you've wanged it to the 8,500 rpm redline a few times you might start to wonder just how sensible it is to deploy a weapon like this on a public road. There are more addictive substances than this, but all must be taken internally.

Cheek-Rippling Grip

It is through the corners that the 2010 Porsche 911 RS is at its most epic and rewarding. It responds and feels like a racing car, because in all but name that is what it is. What other road car comes with an ignition cutoff, plumbing for a fire extinguisher and flame-retardant seat fabric as standard equipment?

You'd expect the RS to corner flat and fast, but more surprising is the fact that this most extreme of 911s is so easy to drive on the limit. Relative to a GT3, you really notice the extra grip at the front in slow corners and the stabilizing influence of the big wing in quicker curves. No prizes for guessing that this car is faster point to point than a GT3, but discovering that it is better balanced and clearly easier to drive is a genuine revelation. No doubt it's this confidence that enables the GT3 RS to lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife in the same time as the exotic, mid-engine 611-hp 2003 Porsche Carrera GT.

Even so, once you've parked, returned the keys and gotten your breath back, the most enduring memory of the 2010 Porsche 911 GT3 RS is not what it does but how it does it. This is one of those rare and precious machines that makes you think its engineers were thinking of you when they designed it. The expert matching of the effort levels for all the major controls — steering, gearshift and pedals — suggests a level of attention to detail that borders on the obsessive. The steering is what you remember most, as it conveys so lucidly all the information you want about the road surface while filtering out all the kickback you do not.

2010_porsche_911-gt3-rs_actf34_fd_7_1600.jpg

All Good, Then?

Not for everyone. The 2010 Porsche 911 GT3 RS is a finely honed tool, best used for narrowly defined tasks usually involving a racetrack and driving like your pants are on fire. And to a very great extent, this removes it from the real world.

There's no escaping the fact that by any standards the normal Porsche 911 GT3 is an outstanding driving machine, yet it is sufficiently quiet and comfortable to be used every day, something only a true eccentric would consider in the harder, louder, rawer RS. Then there's the small matter of the $20,600 price gulf between them.

So Herr Preuninger's stated aim to put clear air between the GT3 and its RS offshoot has met with success. The best way to look at them is to think of the GT3 as a devastating street car that's also extremely adept on the track, and think of the GT3 RS as a street-legal track car with all the good and bad that entails.

But for those who believe that a Porsche should be about driving first and everything else second, the 2010 Porsche 911 GT3 RS is not just the greatest car that Porsche makes but also one of the greatest it has ever made. In an era in which carmakers think nothing of exhuming model names from the past to help prop up rather more lame products of today, it's good to see Porsche not simply doing justice to its illustrious heritage, but adding to it, too.

[Gast]

Schitterend...

[Gast]

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Echt een van de Beste filmkes die ik al ooit gezien heb! Die zwarte Carrera GT's, en die GT3 RS op het begin , howwwwwwwwla

[Gast]

Schitterend...

Idd, heerlijk stukje tekst om te lezen!

[Porker]

The return of Porsche's homologation special means sleepless nights for Adam Towler...

(16 February 2010)

So here it is, the moment many of us have been waiting for: Porsche's homologation special returns, squeaking its way across the blindingly clean workshop floor of the Weissach Motorsport department and out into the wide world.

It is, according to its instigator Andreas Preuninger - head of the GT department at Porsche - a "car that a guy must see an advert for, and then not be able to sleep that night". I'd go along with that: the night before I drove it I couldn't sleep. It is also claimed to differentiate more from the standard GT3 than the Gen 1 version did (along with a seven seconds faster 'Ring time), but at £104,841 it is also £18,777 more expensive than a standard GT3, a car that, it should be remembered, is already sublime.

As with the previous 997 (Gen 1) RS, the new car uses the 44mm wider body from the Turbo/four-wheel drive Carrera models, but now teamed with extensions around the front wheels too, allowing Porsche to increase the front tyre contact patch.

Engine and chassis, weight-loss and aero: those are the three main areas of development. For the former, Porsche has carried over the new 3.8-litre motor from the regular GT3, but there are a few changes to take the power up to 450hp (from 435hp).

Chiefly, these involve a whole new air intake system breathing through two enlarged ram air intakes on the engine lid, the ECU is remapped, there's a modified titanium exhaust, and a further 1kg has been machined off the single-mass flywheel compared to the old car. Compared to the GT3 the dampers are new and the anti-roll bars revised, while PADM active engine mounts are standard fit, as is PASM suspension and full stability and traction control.

RS weight is quoted at 1,370kg (with full fluids), some 25kg less than a regular GT3 and around 80kg more than a GT3 Cup race car. However, to get to that figure you need to specify the carbon ceramic brake option and the lightweight seats, as well as leaving out air conditioning. The test car we drive is to this full lightweight spec, or as Preuninger says, "how we like it".

Porsche's problem is that for every kilo they save, others are being put back in. For starters, the wider body is heavier, there's the Clubsport cage, and the Gen 2 911s have more weight in the nose due to increased crash protection. In response, Porsche has the single nut lightweight wheels, a plastic rear 'screen, a composite engine cover and the carbon fibre rear wing. Then you factor in the carbon buckets, the ceramics, the optional lightweight battery (-10kg).

You can also leave out any form of stereo, as in this car (-4kg if its PCM3), and I would have suggested the deletion of xenon lights. But apparently the extra weight of these is pretty much all down to the extra fluid in the larger washer reservoir that legislation demands, and you need them for fast night driving according to the boss, so simply run them dry.

Porsche has also tried harder with the little details this time around: there is no sound deadening in the roof on the RS, there are no internal door handles (just red pull cords) and even the cup holders have been deleted from the dash (saving 300gms!).

Most obvious are the changes to the aerodynamics, with the addition of the Cup-style front splitter and the rear wing, closely related to that on the RSR and the new R. At full chat the new RS produces 170kg of downforce, or put another way, at 100mph it produces the same amount of downforce as the Gen 1 RS did flat out.

Today, on the tight mountain roads in southern France, that may not be so important. All of the above tech talk is great, but the thing that really grabs you by the undercarriage is the feel and emotion of this car. It's just so responsive, so precise and analogue, so pure in feel. That sound too - reverberating off the mountainside from over a mile away - exotic, granite-edged and rising to a pitch and volume where it seems the engine must burst apart.

The moment you fire it up the noise drills into the cockpit, the flywheel clattering away like an old taxi idling. The alcantara 'wheel and gear knob feel just right in the hands, with the former connected to an outstanding steering system full of feel and of ideal weighting: the latter, like the regular GT3, has a really sturdy, mechanical mechanism that comes into its own when you're changing gear at high revs. It's not the most relaxing car to drive in traffic, but then again neither is it uncomfortable - if anything it rides slightly better than a stock GT3 due to tyre and suspension subtleties.

Prod the throttle and you notice another difference with the RS - the lower final drive and a shorter sixth gear certainly make the car more responsive, although for UK use they could be shorter still. Hold it to the floor and the RS will sing 'round to 8,500rpm, with performance as ferocious as you'd expect.

The extra front-end grip and that superb steering give you loads of confidence turning into corners, and of course, in the dry the grip is prodigious: as you might expect on Pilot Sport Cups, at zero degrees with a dusting of snow it all becomes a bit tricky. The ceramic brakes have incredible retardation, but the pedal seemed slightly high on this particular car, making any heel and toeing difficult unless you were pushing on the pedal very hard.

Still, so much of this car has been tailored for the track, so it would be wrong to claim this is a full review based on a day charging at mountain hairpins and another watching giant snow flakes idly collecting on that outrageous plank of a rear wing. That there seems excellent front end grip, allied with the confidence from that wonderful steering, and the aforementioned aero improvements, all point to greatness, but that remains to be seen.

So, while I might have eluded to something sensible earlier about 19 grand price differentials, whether you're standing five feet away from it, sat in it - or best of all - driving it, the RS delivers an Weissach-brewed adrenalin narcotic that blows away those practical arguments. May cars like this long continue to be made. Oh, and if you're not taken with the colours or the graphics, fork out another three grand and you can have what you want. Chartreuse Green perhaps?

[Alexx]

the thing that really grabs you by the undercarriage is the feel and emotion of this car. It's just so responsive, so precise and analogue, so pure in feel. That sound too - reverberating off the mountainside from over a mile away - exotic, granite-edged and rising to a pitch and volume where it seems the engine must burst apart.

The moment you fire it up the noise drills into the cockpit, the flywheel clattering away like an old taxi idling. The alcantara 'wheel and gear knob feel just right in the hands, with the former connected to an outstanding steering system full of feel and of ideal weighting: the latter, like the regular GT3, has a really sturdy, mechanical mechanism that comes into its own when you're changing gear at high revs.

[Gast]

ik wil

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[Wimpus]

ik wil

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vet filmke

[Gast]

Die GT3 RS reviews zijn bijna pijnlijk...

Oké, eerste keer dat ik dat soort kleur op een moderne Porsche knap vind. Zeer knap zelfs, en de titaniumkleur velgen en de gele PCCB remklauwen staan er beeldig bij.

[Jokke_vlo]

Ik weiger nog langer dit topic te lezen ter bescherming van mijnen "bruinen"

[Gast]

Ben nog altijd aan het wachten op een GT3 in Dunkelblau metallic met titaniumkleurige velgen en PCCB... Dat is waarschijnlijk mijn absolute droomcombo(wagen).

[Gast]

Ik weiger nog langer dit topic te lezen ter bescherming van mijnen "bruinen"

You know you want it.

[Jokke_vlo]

Ff geen grap. Ik kijk toch ook naar alternatieven 1 ding is zeker als het een P wordt, is het gene nieuwe maar een 2-jaar oud model van een prof voetballer of wegrenner die er niet mee reed

[Gast]

Die GT3 RS reviews zijn bijna pijnlijk...

Ja hé... maar het prijskaartje ook (bij Carrera Motors komt er eentje die 179000 eurootjes kost. Doe er de PCCB af en 't is nog altijd 170k )

Ik vind het eindelijk wel super dat Porsche wat meer verschil heeft gecreëerd tussen GT3 en GT3 RS, en dan doel ik persoonlijk vooral op de wijdere trackbreedte (vooraan), de andere verhoudingen van de bak en het single mass flywheel. Dat laatste zou ik nog durven overwegen als mod op een GT3, alleen al voor het bijhorend gereutel

Enige punt van zever is het gewicht : 't is duidelijk dat het verschil eigenlijk niks is en afhangt van de gekozen opties. Neem een GT3 met kuipjes en PCCB, zonder clubsportpakket, met halogeenlampen ipv xenon en een lithiumbatterij en die is zeker lichter dan een RS

[Porker]

Ja hé... maar het prijskaartje ook (bij Carrera Motors komt er eentje die 179000 eurootjes kost. Doe er de PCCB af en 't is nog altijd 170k )

Ik vind het eindelijk wel super dat Porsche wat meer verschil heeft gecreëerd tussen GT3 en GT3 RS, en dan doel ik persoonlijk vooral op de wijdere trackbreedte (vooraan), de andere verhoudingen van de bak en het single mass flywheel. Dat laatste zou ik nog durven overwegen als mod op een GT3, alleen al voor het bijhorend gereutel

Enige punt van zever is het gewicht : 't is duidelijk dat het verschil eigenlijk niks is en afhangt van de gekozen opties. Neem een GT3 met kuipjes en PCCB, zonder clubsportpakket, met halogeenlampen ipv xenon en een lithiumbatterij en die is zeker lichter dan een RS

Een conclusie over het kostenplaatje mag je pas maken op het einde van de rit, na verkoop...

Stel dat je destijds een 996 GT3 RS had gekocht ipv. een gewone mk.2 GT3, de meerprijs vang je nu integraal terug tweedehands. Eigenlijk rij je dus gratis RS, ofzoiets...

[Gast]

Je hebt gelijk, maar ik heb geen 170k !

[Gast]

"ik heb geen 170k"

zeg je

ik wil helpen

als het om knikkers gaat, of zandkorrels, ofzo

[bobo]

die donkerbruine 911 bij porsche antwerpen, prachtig

[Gast]

Een conclusie over het kostenplaatje mag je pas maken op het einde van de rit, na verkoop...

Stel dat je destijds een 996 GT3 RS had gekocht ipv. een gewone mk.2 GT3, de meerprijs vang je nu integraal terug tweedehands. Eigenlijk rij je dus gratis RS, ofzoiets...

Ja en zo een kar verkoop je ook op 3 weken .....