A week in a Porsche 911 GT3: why the world’s best sports car isn’t quite perfect
A week in the Porsche 911 GT3 reveals why even the world’s best sports car can’t get it all right
It’s human nature to try to resist. You’re told something is brilliant over and over again, people ‘go on’ about it and your instinct is to find a reason why it’s terrible. That goes for films, music, food, TV and… cars. There are a few that fit the brief. Look to the bowels of social media comment sections and you’ll find a legion of casual fans, largely without any driving experience, shouting about the Nissan GT-R, Toyota Supra and Mazda MX-5. Fine cars all – great even in the case of the GT-R and MX-5 – but not the be-all end-all.
They don’t niggle at me so much. What about critics? Well, m’learned colleagues have spent an awful lot of time and pages in evo over the years, singing the praises (I think the latest vernacular from the youth calls is ‘glazing’) the Porsche 911 GT3. Recently, out of the blue, I was presented with the opportunity to spend a week in the latest 992.2 GT3 Touring. While I was excited to luxuriate in what I know to be brilliant about it, more-so I was curious to find out what was wrong with it. Surely what the internet and all critics have hailed as the world’s perfect sports car isn’t actually without flaw?
Some had speculated about the ‘Touring’ chops on the pre-facelift, wondering whether the wing car’s tough suspension set-up should have been softened for the more subtle, road-focused model. For the 992.2, the set-ups have been kept identical again, albeit with the proviso that it adopts the 911 S/T’s more compliant damper settings (as well as improved anti-dive at the front).
Initially, I found the GT3 to be habitable. Consistently active, never ‘magic carpet’ but inoffensive. After a few miles had disappeared under the wheels however, it did start to grate. Point number one as to why it’s not perfect: for a Touring, it really ought to be able to be softened off more, perhaps with a bumpy road mode?
Having spent a decent amount of time in the enormously configurable 992.1 GT3 RS, I can tell you that in the softest of its custom settings, it rides better than a standard GT3 on the road, which seems a bit silly. Even at pace when the car’s more in its comfort zone, some more punchy stretches of road unsettle the GT3 to the extent that I found myself fantasizing about tackling it in a BMW M5 CS instead.
The magic is real though. Wind that 500bhp 4-litre flat-six that’s clinging to road homologation by the skin of its many catalytic converters up to 9000rpm and you wonder exactly how the thing’s road legal at all. It’s synaptic, bristlingly responsive and oozing with personality. The transmission is commensurately precise and so, if you’re out of practice with a manual, it will make obvious the deficits in your rev-matching skills. This is a car that forces its operator to level up and that’s a great thing.
Occasionally not so great is the fact it’s also pretty bloody noisy. Not only is the ‘Touring’ pretty punchy to actually tour in, so too is it raucous in terms of cruising engine noise (well over 3000rpm at motorway speeds), tyre roar and a consistent almost dog box-esque whine from the differential. On certain rashed and concrete sections of the M25, it’s a quite spectacularly intrusive cacophony.
The 992.2 is at least more practical than ever, offering for the first time officially the option of rear seats and, unlike the latest generation of GT3 RS, retaining a decent-sized boot. Not bad at all. The frunk was enough to swallow a three-day bag and the back seats housed adults in relative short-term comfort. There’s no reason why you couldn’t manage the school run in a GT3 with back seats.
None are fooled for long though. This is token acquiescence to practicality from a car that stops very little short of being a racing car on the road. On the right (smooth enough) road, it really does feel like the stars align. You spy the asphalt sprawling ahead, out the windscreen and on the sat-nav, and work to muster your best heel’n’toe technique, determined not to be the weak link in this man-machine tag team.
Soon enough, the GT3 is up on its toes. I’ve not driven a sports car that’s so transparent in how it’s loading its outside tyres front to rear. You can just jump on top of it, lean on its balance, sense your failings (usually hamfistedness with the front end) and correct them. Then you can use the razor-sharp motor, bouncing between the gears with the Leichtbau pack’s stubby short shifter, to pressure the rear wheels into gentle over-rotation, finding neutral stances and dancing the GT3 from corner to corner. This is sports car flow state.
Then you quickly realise, this is also (not so) moderately malfeasant. Such is the capability of the GT3 and the speeds you can reach once the massive Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s are up to temperature. The anxiety kicks in – ‘this thing’s going to get me in trouble’. So you start playing with the gears and the rev range, trying to dance with the car within the bounds of legality and slowly, surely… frustration. The car is begging for more – more revs, more gears (the ratios are shortened, but still pretty long), more load through the tyres and more speed. The road is a cage and how it incarcerates the 992.2 GT3 feels like borderline cruelty.
The frustration grew in me over my 600-plus miles with the car. The moments come where you have to decide, am I going to work the car as it’s begging me to, or am I going to protect my driving licence, livelihood and career? You just end up either wishing you could turn things down from 11, so you don’t feel so consistently nagged, or that the car’s limits were lower and that it was more satisfying at a more moderate pace. You end up wishing it was a 997 GT3…
To be clear, everything you’ve ever heard, read or watched about these cars is true. They are extraordinary, as close to perfection as it gets. It’s the driving equivalent of an opioid when you’re on the right road, in the right moment, with no one around. But they are not perfect. For one, Touring is something of a false advertisement. You can get your stuff (and now a few people) in a Touring when correctly optioned, but this is a fighty car to spend extended periods of time in. For another, it’s just so fast and so capable and is so keen for that performance to be explored, that those rare moments of nirvana are often sandwiched between extended periods of frustration. An incredible car, too good for the world we’re forced to operate it in.
