Styling
It's hard to think of anything wearing number plates that exudes such a visual sense of overblown menace as the 992 Porsche 911 GT3 RS. It stands out amongst the more humdrum everyday cars of this world from miles off, drawing attention to it like no other vehicle you can imagine - our test version was in glorious Guards Red with gold-finished, forged-magnesium alloys (20-inch fronts, 21s at the rear), but it doesn't matter how you paint the RS, it's going to look utterly demented.
What with the slats on the front wheel arches, and the great holes dug out of its bonnet, and the lurid side decals on the doors, and spats and aero flics and the honking great rear diffuser and even those little vertical tabs on the roof, this is a car which screams 'I'M PURPOSEFUL' to everyone within a 20-mile radius of its position. And you might notice we've not even mentioned the ginormous swan-neck, adjustable rear spoiler straight from a competition-spec 911, either. Because we really felt we didn't need to. Seriously, how could anyone miss
that?
Anyway, what you make of the aesthetic of the 911 GT3 RS will depend on how strong your inner child is. There are people who are going to look at this Porsche and be thoroughly horrified by it: either petrolheads who prefer 'sleeper'-type vehicles and some discretion, or folk who are simply not interested in cars in the slightest. And we get that, we truly do. But we think it looks fantastic - and we're clearly not alone, because during our three-hour-plus, 140-mile test drive in the RS around the North Wessex Downs, this bewinged 911 drew all manner of approving gestures from other road users and bystanders. And yes, they really
were 'approving', thank you very much indeed...
Interior
If the madcap exterior of the GT3 RS promises insanity, the interior doesn't let the side down. Two carbon-shelled bucket seats take pride of place, behind a GT Sport steering wheel festooned with FOUR separate rotary controllers, so that the driver can minutely adjust all of the Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM), the Porsche Torque Vectoring Plus (PTV Plus) diff, the electronic stability control (ESC) and traction control (TC) and the drive modes as easily as possible when on the hoof. You can even fiddle around with the suspension individually for rebound and compression using the left-hand screen in the 911's cluster, rather than just picking if the PASM dampers will be firm (Normal) or rock hard (Sport), while there's a drag-reduction system (DRS) that alters the angle of attack of the rear wing and front splitter. Yes, DRS, like an F1 car.
Speaking of the instrument cluster, as a 992.1 the GT3 RS retains the analogue central rev counter - finished in red in our example to match the bodywork, as is the face of the Sport Chrono clock atop the dash, but other hues are available - with two seven-inch screens sitting either side of it. Some might prefer this set-up to the 992.2's 12.6-inch Curved Display all-TFT affair. We don't mind either way, but that big tachometer is certainly appealing, as is the fact the RS has the old lever for the PDK, which (in a driver-focused model like this 911) we do like more than the stumpy little 'electric razor' that's used for other automatic 992s. To complete the electrifying ambience of the GT3 RS' cabin, practically everything you look at and touch is swaddled in Race-Tex microfibre, while the back of the car is crammed with 'scaffolding' because it comes with the 15kg-lightening Weissach Package including a rollcage. Proper.
Practicality
A section we might as well skip, to be perfectly honest. Any 911 is hardly a paragon of practicality, but the RS has zero concessions to helpfulness. The area under the bonnet that would usually be home to a cuboid 135-litre cubby in any other 992 has been sacrificed for a socking great cooling system serving the 4.0-litre flat-six engine occupying the boot, while the rear of the passenger compartment is clearly out of commission because it has no seats and is full of rollcage. Unless you want to stuff small bits of luggage/possessions in between the tubes of said item, your sole areas of stowage in the GT3 RS amount to the glovebox, some minimal door pockets and - if you're travelling one-up, we guess - the front passenger footwell and seat.
Performance
Slipping into the first person for a minute and leaving the royal 'we' behind, my learned colleague James Fossdyke had warned me prior to driving the 992 GT3 RS that it was "a bit much for the road"
as he'd already sampled it two years ago. And I know of what he speaks, because in those dim and hazy days in that era that was pre-Covid, I drove this car's immediate predecessor in
991.2 form. On pretty much the same roads. In the same weather conditions. And it was utterly brilliant, but it did feel quite...
lively, shall I say?
Heading out west along the M4 to Newbury is clearly not the 911 GT3 RS' forte, but by the same token it's not utterly appalling on the motorway, primarily due to its excellent damping - which we'll come onto in the next section. But while there's a lot of tyre din and the Porsche's form isn't the most aerodynamic thing in the world, it'll sit happily enough at 70mph without feeling like you're on the verge of being deafened, nor restraining a furious animal either.
Which you are, of course. And this becomes evident the moment you spear off the motorway and dare to venture anywhere past north (5,000rpm) on the rev counter. At which point the 911 GT3 RS explodes into one of the all-time great automotive soundtracks, that serrated, hollowed-out howl bellowing away at the back of the car as the speed increases seemingly exponentially. The unrelenting, gloriously linear way the RS pulls for its 9,000rpm redline is astounding and belies the fact it is, on paper, only 15 horsepower stronger than the
GT3, and you will want to hear the tunes it makes between 6,000-9,000rpm time and time and time again. Although that's not to say it sounds dull below 6,000rpm, because it most emphatically doesn't.
And yeah, the RS is PDK-only, with no option for a six-speed manual. But you honestly won't miss it at all, because the dual-clutch auto is so fast and sharp and seamless at banging in both up- and downshifts on the paddles that you can't help but adore it. The crispness of the gearbox teams to a throttle to which the usual 'razor-sharp' adjective is doing it a grotesque disservice, so simply toying with the 911's drivetrain and exploring just how it will respond to every different flex of your right ankle is a delight.
Fuel economy? OK, it's poor. The RS gave back 16.9mpg across the 140 miles of the test drive, although it might push into the mid-20s on a motorway run if you're gentle with it, and can resist the specific charms of its scintillating engine. Good luck with that, mind.
Ride & Handling
Moving away from the M4 and onto the excellent, sinuous road which links Newbury to Wantage across Chain Hill (you know the one), and with memories of both driving the skittish 991.2 GT3 RS six years ago and also Mr Fossdyke's sage words regarding this very car swimming around my mind, there's a small degree of trepidation to dialling the 992.1 RS up to its more aggressive modes. But, of course, I needn't have worried. Because it's comprehensively tremendous to drive.
It is equipped with some of the most natural-feeling, crystal-clear steering you'll ever have the pleasure of encountering. The merest roll of your wrists has the 911's double-wishbone front end responding immediately and accurately, without coming across as nervous or twitchy, and the magnificent GT Sport steering wheel is rich with feel and feedback. As an unimpeachable line of communication between car and driver, it's heavenly.
Then there's the damping, which is little short of exquisite. Total body and wheel control is exhibited by the 911 GT3 RS at all times in all modes, so if you were being hyper-critical you could say the settings switch on the steering wheel is redundant. But that's not true, because there's genuine light and shade between the car's attitude in Normal and how it feels in Sport Plus. You probably don't want the latter for lumpen B-roads like the 4494, but on smoother, sweeping A-roads it'll be fine.
Wonderfully, the 992.1 GT3 RS feels more approachable than its immediate ancestor. Even in less-than-ideal climatic and road conditions, you can exploit full throttle (within reason) without the car giving the impression it's going to spike into vicious oversteer, and the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres find surprisingly high levels of traction even in the cold and wet. But if you're fearing the RS has been sanitised, it hasn't - there's still the overriding sensation that this is a car which could bite the unwary or the overly confident if you take diabolical liberties with it. You need to be switched on to all the messages it is clearly telegraphing back to you as the driver, in order to get the very best of it.
The result is that when you hook up the sensational chassis to the sublime drivetrain, the 911 GT3 RS will deliver the sort of drive that will live on in your memory for decades. And you don't have to be pushing right up to the very limits of its dynamic envelope in order to enjoy it, because not only would doing such a thing on the roads be highly illegal, regardless the Porsche will thoroughly entertain its driver at lower speeds and saner levels of cornering commitment.
Ride and refinement, on the other hand, are not the GT3 RS' strengths, but by the same token it's not dreadful to travel in for longer distances. As stated earlier, on the motorway it's surprisingly composed for damping (if a little rowdy in the cabin) and because its wheels are forged lightweight items, there's no feeling of hefty unsprung mass at all corners, something which does wonders for ride comfort in general. Yes, this ultimate 911 is firm-edged, taut and always busy in terms of the way it covers ground, but it's never actually outright uncomfortable. So much so that I kept deviating to take longer and longer routes back to Reading in the GT3 RS, even though the light was fading and I needed to get the 992.2 Carrera that was lined up for this outlet back to Nottinghamshire in rush-hour traffic. The RS is simply that kind of car, that you'll drive just for the sake of it.
Value
There's a good argument to be made here that the GT3, which is a hefty £35,000-plus cheaper and which offers 99.99 per cent of the entertainment value of the RS, only in a more road-friendly and less volatile-looking package, makes this 525hp 911 look overpriced at £192,600 basic. And that's saying nothing of the options on the RS test car handed over by Porsche GB's friendly PR team, because once you've started dropping £1,937 on protective front foil, £2,546 on the front-axle lift system, £8,141 on a set of Porsche Ceramic Composite Brakes (and we're baffled as to why these aren't standard-fit on the track-biased GT3 RS), £2,861 on the matrix-beam Porsche Dynamic Light System Plus (PDLS Plus), the £1,007 extended Race-Tex package, exactly the same amount on a reversing camera, and £1,152 for the Bose Surround Sound system (you really don't need this with that 4.0-litre engine at your beck and call), plus some other sundries, the price of the GT3 RS can soon balloon well towards the quarter-of-a-million mark.
And the Weissach Package? Oh. Well now. That, alone, will set buyers back £29,600. That's not a typo. It's an entire well-specced
Fiat 600 Hybrid's-worth of optional equipment on the RS, plus a few grand. Yikes. However, mitigating the overall figure of £243,136 for the GT3 RS in question, you'll see lightly used examples of the 992.1 RS for sale on very well-known websites for 300 grand and more, due to the incessant demand for Porsche's GT Department products. Therefore, if you can afford to buy this singular 911, and you're approved by the company to do so in the first place, you're incredibly unlikely to ever lose money on it. It's like buying a bar of four-wheeled gold.
Verdict
Even though our overall star ratings are at odds, my colleague James is not wrong: broadly speaking, the 992.1 Porsche 911 GT3 RS is too much car for the road. It's obvious how clearly it has been targeted at a wealthy track-day clientele, and its race-circuit looks, uncompromising interior and fearsome expense all do make it a tad extreme if you're considering using it as a daily driver. There are better cars, and better 911s, for that kind of malarkey.
But if we're to strip all other considerations away and judge the GT3 RS purely on the merits of 'how good is this thing to drive?', then it's impossible to fault. It'll serve up a stunning experience behind its wheel that'll hardwire itself into your cerebral cortex for the rest of time, no matter if you're driving along your favourite country road or taking on Eau Rouge-Raidillon flat chat. It's a truly stellar piece of kit and we should savour it now, while we still can, because high-revving, normally aspirated screamers like the 911 GT3 RS cannot continue forever. More's the pity.
