Porsche 911 GT3 Touring Leichtbau manual 992.2
We know we're lucky sods to do this job in the first place, and during the course of our, um, gruelling duties we've been fortunate enough to have driven a wide variety of Porsches, of varying types and purposes. Almost all of these have been sensational, in their own ways, and then when you realise this German company has some of the finest chassis engineers going at its disposal, it also becomes apparent than when you drive a truly gifted Porsche, it's got to be in for that exalted title of 'The Best Car We've Ever Driven'.
While the company's supersaloons, EVs and SUVs are all splendid (and usually class-leading) in their own ways, the mantle of 'best' obviously naturally falls to the dedicated sports cars. Yet, in the battle between 911 and 718, the pendulum has swung various ways. In recent history, the first to set the dynamic bar so incredibly high was, naturally, the
991.2 GT3 manual. Lopping that car's roof off and charging double for it might sound like sacrilege, but arguably the haunting
991 Speedster nicked the crown for a brief period, thanks to letting you hear that astounding flat-six engine all the better.
Then the period of sacrilege. The beguiling
718 Spyder couldn't quite topple the mighty 911s, although it came remarkably close to doing so, but we felt the related
718 Cayman GT4 could - the first non-911 to kinematically eclipse Porsche's iconic halo model. Mid-engined is better than rear-engined, see?
Incredibly, the
718 Boxster GTS 4.0 came within a gnat's of giving a 'mere' roadster the title for the briefest stint, but ultimately the Cayman GT4 was dethroned by a familiar name: the 992.2 GT3. And nope, we've not forgotten (or missed) the
992.1 GT3, either; a great car, but not quite up to the GT4. Sure, you might think that obvious RS entries into the Porsche canon, like
this one or, more obviously,
this one, would've done the job, but they were ultimately a little too compromised and unrelentingly track-focused for road work.
Some truly leftfield choices have mounted outside challenges over the years, such as the almost wilfully perverse
992.1 Carrera S manual or the stunning
Dakar, the latter because it drives in a fashion that's unlike any other modern-era 911 and so it stands out so stridently for all the right reasons.
But it's the 992.2 GT3 which currently takes the biscuit. And, following on from our international first drive of both the winged and 'with Touring Package' variants overseas at the start of the year, when we were given the chance to try the GT3 Touring with a manual transmission back home in the UK, we didn't hesitate to accept. And guess what? There's a new king in town.
Styling
Unlike the only other manual 992.2 in the family, the
Carrera T sitting at the other end of the 911's range, the GT3 Touring does not shout about its six-speed transmission at all. There are no stickers nor puddle lights with H-pattern graphics on them, no indication whatsoever on the outside that this is the driving purists' choice. It looks like any other GT3 Touring. Which means 'phenomenal'. Oh, and the spec of the car you can see here in the pictures is absolute
perfection. It's Oak Green metallic neo (£3,235) with the silver 20-inch front, 21-inch rear forged lightweight magnesium wheels of the Leichtbau package (we'll come back to this later). Throw on one of Porsche's most famous press plates in this country, namely '911 GB', and you have a car that rightly draws a huge amount of positive attention wherever it goes. It's visually faultless.
Interior
The cabin of the GT3 is as per any 992.2, only subtly lifted with a few key upmarket details. This primarily relates to trim finishes and different use of materials, but there are also physical differences which are specific to the 4.0-litre 911 - primarily, these being the retention of the rotary turn-to-start ignition switch to the right of the exquisite GT Sport steering wheel (instead of a round start-stop button on every other model) and a different array of five shortcut buttons below the central 10.9-inch Porsche Communication Management (PCM) infotainment screen.
What the GT3 does have, which aligns it with all its current 911 stablemates, is the new and all-digital 12.6-inch Curved Display instrument cluster, which means the centrally mounted analogue rev counter has gone. In its place, the GT3 at least has its own bespoke graphics, including the ability to change the display of the tacho to place the all-important 9,000rpm redline at top-dead-centre of the screen if you want, and in typical Porsche fashion then marshalling everything in that cluster via the wheel controls is highly intuitive.
If you go for the PDK with the GT3 then the shifter is also different to other 992.2s, being the taller stick-like item of older Porsches rather than the stubby new 'razor' item you'd find in any other self-shifting 911s. But, of course, we're not talking about a PDK here. And so the manual option in the GT3 Touring does not bring in the walnut-wood gearknob seen in the Carrera T, but instead the quick-shift, yellow-emblazoned lever from the short-lived S/T special. As this one is also a 'Leichtbau', then the small plaque at the bottom of the gearshift bears that epithet rather than 'GT3', while the same bundle of equipment brings in the glorious carbon-backed lightweight bucket sports seats as part of the kit. These have folding backrests, because 911 GB was optioned up with the free-of-charge rear seats. Overall, though, with its unstinting quality, spot-on ergonomics and general air of specialness, the GT3's cabin is a great place to be.
Practicality
With the rear seats fitted, there's less official 'boot space' for the back of the passenger compartment, but the folding backrests of the front chairs do at least make accessing the second row of the 911 that bit easier. Albeit still tricky, given how small the rear of the cabin is in the Porsche. Unlike its hardcore RS relative, the GT3 doesn't sacrifice its 132-litre front-mounted cubby under the bonnet in the name of cooling purposes, so you do at least have that storage area to fall back upon if you need it.
Performance
Like the PDK 992.2 GT3 models, either with wing or without, the manual variant has a transmission with an eight per cent shorter final drive than it had before. This gives the GT3 more acceleration and a feeling of greater urgency in its lower gears, at the expense of a handful of completely irrelevant top-end mph. Nevertheless, PDK Porsches accelerate a whole lot quicker than ones with H-pattern manuals, so this GT3 Touring is, on paper, no quicker from 0-62mph than the 'basic'
992.2 Carrera with a dual-clutch 'box. Indeed, officially, of all the 992.2s we've seen so far, the manual GT3 is among the three slowest-accelerating versions of the lot.
If that sort of thing bothers you. Which it shouldn't. Because any car which can do 0-62mph in less than four seconds remains startlingly quick, even in an age of mega-torque EVs, and then there's the sheer sensation of unleashing that 4.0-litre flat-six to consider. Which makes all official printed data utterly inconsequential, as you will drive precious few things that have throttle response this beautifully crisp and immediate, nor vehicles which sound anything like the GT3. Up to 4,000rpm, it has the same low, angry, grumbling chunter as the 3.0-litre biturbo models you'll find elsewhere in the 992.2 range, but once you get past that point the 4.0-litre makes its supremacy keenly felt.
It's not just the fizzing zesty nature of it and the seeming inertia in the way it piles on revs, both of which are intoxicating in their own way, but of course the noise. A howling, hard-edged bark that transforms into the most incredible metallic scream in that final thousand revs up to the redline is one of the all-time great automotive soundtracks. And when it's up to you to properly time to the millisecond a manual upshift at 9,000rpm, then the rewards of operating the 510hp six-cylinder unit are just immense. Ditto downshifts, with the sharp snap of flaring revs as you come down the cogs putting the hairs on the back of your neck right on end. Heel-and-toe is, naturally, exceptional due to Porsche's pedal spacing and calibration of the relevant two pedals involved, while the gearbox is faultless - slick of shift, tight across the gate and pleasingly mechanical in its throw. Even the gearing is decent, the slightly shorter transmission meaning you can utilise more of second and third on the roads in the GT3 more of the time, allowing you to hear the 911's siren song that little bit more regularly.
This drivetrain is simply magical. In performance, in noise, in feel. It has, as far as we're concerned, no flaws whatsoever. Save for fuel consumption. An energetic four-hour, 173-mile drive around the fringes of the Cotswolds saw the 911 GT3 Touring return just 18.9mpg and empty its tank down to about a quarter-full, with 56 miles of indicated range left. Not so great for actually 'Touring', then. But that's entirely missing the point of the GT3, isn't it?
Ride & Handling
We don't know what more you could want from a car dynamically than the glittering showing the Porsche 911 GT3 Touring manual serves up. Take a look at our
first international drive of the PDK model to see what the company did to sharpen up what was already a sublime chassis from the 992.1 predecessor, but on roads the latest GT3 is just perfect. Driven straight off the back of 816 miles in the phenomenal Carrera T, the GT3 instantaneously demonstrates that while the T is a fabulous road car and operating at a kinematic level most other rival manufacturers can only dream of, there's a difference between what still classifies as a 'regular' Porsche and then something which emerges from the hallowed GT Department headed by Andreas Preuninger.
It's the unmatched sophistication of the damping, primarily. It's otherworldly. At the point where you think it might have run out of travel, have run out of ideas, it summons up another level of control and assurance that's quite breathtaking. There's a flick-flack, high-speed direction change near the northern end of the B4494, between two farm tracks either side of the road, that's a real test of any car, given the strange camber-crest-and-rapid-direction-change combination it serves up. You approach it at high speed because the previous corner is some way distant on a hillside, so it takes some commitment (and no traffic, although the sighting up here is for miles) to tackle it flat. In the Carrera T, we lifted as we approached, sure that the brilliant 911 wouldn't be quite content without a slight brush on the brakes before entry; in the GT3, we couldn't get near the car's limits of grip and balance in the same situation. In other words, our bottle gave out long before the car's amazing talents looked like they were even wavering.
And it goes on, across the rest of the long test route, to display a peerless display of balance, ability and reward that makes the GT3 Touring such a legendary car to drive. There's nothing about its major controls, in terms of calibration and weighting, that you'd change. Nothing about its capabilities that ever leaves you wanting. Nothing about that jewel of a drivetrain that has you yearning for either forced induction or electrical assistance.
Is it a comfortable car? Well, for what it is, yes, somewhat to our surprise. The damping is supple enough and the GT3 light enough on its feet that few road-surface imperfections upset it, while those outrageously trim magnesium wheels reduce the unsprung mass by 9.1kg, and give both the steering and the suspension a lightness of touch and crystal-clear clarity that is unmatched by any other 911. Sure, the underlying firmness of the chassis set-up and the low profile of the tyres means that there are more comfortable and forgiving cars in the world with which to do long distances than the GT3 Touring; heck, there's even a couple of other 911s which would be better at such things. But with decent noise suppression when those optional rear seats are fitted, the GT3 is far better at the everyday stuff than you'd expect - even with your expectations adjusted accordingly for the more demure body of the Touring when compared to its fully winged-up sibling.
Value
This section is something of a moot point. Officially, the 911 GT3, with or without the socking great swan-neck spoiler on the back of it, is £157,300. There are then a multitude of options you can add which will soon swell that figure considerably, as evinced by this particular car's £45,514 of extras taking it the wrong side of 200 grand (£203,714, to be exact) - this chunky uplift mainly down to the astonishing £29,223 of the Lightweight Package, which is the anglicised version of 'Leichtbau'. This makes the roof and various other components carbon, plus it fits the aforementioned magnesium alloy wheels and the folding-back carbon bucket seats, but when you can think that you can get entire cars, pretty good as new and deeply appealing if used, for the same amount of money then it certainly raises quizzical eyebrows.
There's more to it than that. HD-Matrix LED lights add £2,033 to proceedings, a protective foil front cover another £2,054. The vital front-axle lifting kit is a bruising £2,701, while the fancy Porsche Design GT Clock sitting loftily on the dashboard is an upgrade to the Sport Chrono Package at £1,468. Extended leather with GT Silver contrast stitching requires another £1,067. Painting the brake callipers black, £708. The Bose Surround Sound System (at £1,269) is excellent, but when you have that 4.0-litre flat-six at your disposal then you shouldn't ever really be listening to the stereo and Capital FM, instead of the engine.
But all of this carping about a £200,000-plus GT3 Touring is largely irrelevant for two very clear reasons. One, you can't buy a GT3 even if you wanted to. Demand considerably outstrips supply and so you need to be allocated a build slot for a GT3, rather than simply walking into your nearest Porsche dealer with a briefcase full of cash. And two, despite every effort from the manufacturer to avoid this sort of thing, a proportion of the blessed so-and-sos who end up with GT3s, or even the GT3 RS spin-offs, tend to flip them on the used market for even more money than they are new. So if you're in the exclusive queue for a GT3 and you're spending as much on it as 911 GB, then you're very unlikely to lose any cash on this 992.2 whatsoever.
Verdict
A Porsche 911 GT3. It's a magnificent thing whichever way you spec it, and it has been honed over four distinct 911 generations and eight iterations into something approaching sports-car perfection, if not already there. So when the GT3 is a 992.2,
and it's a Touring,
and it's got a manual gearbox,
and it's in Oak Green with the full Leichtbau kit on it, then what we have here is arguably the best car we've ever driven. And we seriously considering dropping the qualifier 'arguably' from that previous sentence.
You might get a handful of more visceral and thrilling moments from a super- or hypercar, sure, but few of those we've ever driven have felt as pure, as cohesive and as rewarding as the GT3 is in such a wide array of circumstances. There are clearly more practical and more comfortable vehicles than this too, as well as ones which drive brilliantly and that are considerably more affordable/available than the GT3 (not least, that 911 Carrera T we mentioned earlier and which we rate so highly). But few cars, if any, will turn every single inch of every journey behind the wheel into special and memorable moments as the 911 GT3. Fitted with a manual transmission, this far into the 2020s? This is quite simply motoring heaven; sorry, PDK fans, but it is. Therefore, we'll end it like this: if we could give the six-speed GT3 Touring six stars out of five - or even ten - then we most assuredly would do so.
