For the Isle of Man launch of the new 911 GT3 RS, Porsche brought along its ancestors and its air-cooled 1973 genesis.
Situation normal
The sky over the Isle of Man is ominously grey. Nothing unusual really, after all we’re in the Northern Hemisphere in April.
It wouldn’t be too much of a concern either, if I were in one of the newer cars here. I’m not, I’m in the oldest — a 1973 911 Carrera RS. Genesis.
Parked alongside it in the pit lane used by the TT riders is a 996-series 911 GT3 RS, a 997.1 GT3 RS, a 997.2 GT3 RS, a 991 GT3 RS and the new 991.2 GT3 RS.
Unlike the car I’m sat in they all share one thing in common, their engines are cooled by the stuff that’s presently falling out of the sky and drenching everything.
They represent the modern era of the RS, but Porsche had a newly fettled original car in its museum so it’s been brought along, too.
Putting its value out of my mind (this is easily a million-dollar car), and the fact its tyres offer only a small contact with which patch to transfer 210hp without molly-coddling electronic safety nets, we set off for a lap of the famous public road course.
Not all of it today; that’s for tomorrow, since part of it is closed as it’s being used. Motorsport is in this island’s make up, though the roads don’t need to be closed to be enjoyed.
Spot the desrestricted sign and it means exactly that: no speed limits.
I’ve driven all these cars — save the new one — before, but never all together. The opportunity to follow this hallowed timeline was too good to resist, which is why I started at the beginning.
Where it all started
If you don’t know about the 2.7 RS then where have you been?
Originally conceived to satisfy motorsport homologation rules, Porsche intended to build 500 examples to allow it to go racing.
It has a 2.7-litre engine, thinner panels for less weight (early cars weighed less than 1000kg), bigger brakes, light Fuchs alloy wheels, a 2.7-litre flat-six engine with 210hp and a iconic ducktail spoiler that helped stabilise it at the greater speeds it was capable of.
In 1973, 0-100km/h in 5.8 seconds was very fast. It’s still quick today; the lack of mass for the 2.7-litre air-cooled flat-six to shift means it’s more than capable of keeping up with modern traffic.
More conventional modern traffic, perhaps — not a line of its ancestors, the oldest being some 20 years younger. It keeps up, weather playing its part, though the 2.7 RS is easy and enjoyable to push.
The fact it’s Porsche’s own rather than a privately owned car makes me happy to explore the upper reaches of its rev range.
Do that and it’s an absolute joy, though you need to be precise with the gearshift, because driving an RS smoothly is a reminder of how easy modern performance cars have become to drive.
The brakes, as in any old car, need a firmer prod than you hope for, and a few heart-in-mouth moments occur before you learn to get on them earlier.
That its legend remains so strong to this day is testament to the correctness of its conception, the original RS resonating right through to the latest car.
That it remained a competitive race car for at least a decade after its arrival underlines how advanced it was.
Other RSs followed — specials like the ’74 3.0 RS and the SC RS, the next production models based on the 964, and the 993, seeing out the air-cooled era before the 996 arrived.
Enter the water-cooled era
The lineage to the 996 GT3 RS is clear, abundantly so.
GT Product Line Director Andreas Preuninger admits he had a picture of a 2.7 RS on his wall, a blue and white one. The GT3 he worked on could have killed the RS.
After all, it followed the same template: lighter, more focussed, greater power and less equipment.
Yet Preuniger saw an opportunity to revive that childhood dream, and with his GT department colleagues he created the 996 GT3 RS.
It arrived in 2004 and, taking the GT3 as its basis, it stripped weight through composite panels for a 1360kg kerb weight.
The motorsport-derived ‘Mezger’ 3.6-litre engine powering it was rated at 381hp, though Preuninger admits none left the factory with less than 400hp.
The 996 RS homologated parts like the wheel hubs and suspension elements to allow Porsche to use them on its racers, just as the 2.7 did.
With its aerodynamics and pared-back interior, the 996 was shocking when new, though today it looks restrained in the company of its younger relations.
The 996 is arguably the purest of the modern-era GT3-derived RS models, doing without stability or traction control, and having a six-speed manual transmission and little else.
The wheels, at 18-inch, ape the Fuchs design of the 2.7, and the 996 was built around a narrow-bodied Carrera rather than a wider-hipped car.
Simple and appealing, the cabin – as in all 996s — is neither special to look at or touch, but that in many ways adds to its authenticity.
You’ll not care either when you start its engine, the 3.6-litre unit filling the Spartan cabin with a mechanical flat-six soundtrack, accompanied by the chatter of the clutch release bearing behind you.
There’s a single-mass flywheel for greater urgency, the 3.6-litre revving quickly, the clutch light and accurate, the gearshift weighty but precise.
There’s a real mix of modernity and old-school charm in the 996 RS, its performance very much in the contemporary sphere, but the feel it delivers and the demands it places on its driver having a foot in the classic camp.
If there’s a shortcoming it’s the front axle, with the push of understeer being the first response when turning the steering wheel.
It’s something you learn to work with, yet in the company here it’s a very obvious classic 911 trait, which on damp roads means you have to be sure you’re playing you’re A-game.
Traction control, wider body
That’s arguably part of its appeal, though jumping into the car that replaced it in 2006 underlines how sizeable a leap in development the RS took in just two years.
With its shapelier body, borrowed from the wider-bottomed 997 Carrera S, the RS gained 15kg, though had an additional 34hp by way of compensation.
Traction control now features and with wider tracks and differing suspension geometry to dial out the 996’s sometimes uncooperative nose, this an RS that you can lean on the front axle with far greater confidence.
The more modern cabin is leagues ahead of the 996, though it’s still simple, and the noises emanating from behind you remain much the same.
The purposeful sounds, more clear through the typical lightweight carpeting and the removal of sound-deadening in the pursuit of reduced weight goad you into pushing the car.
The redline is now 8400rpm and the more substantial controls feel different to the 996’s, though they don’t dilute the delicacy of information coming from them.
It’s pure RS in that aspect, the steering full of fine detail, the chassis communicating its limits.
It’s a car that’s hugely engaging to drive. Only it can be better still, as the 997 Gen II RS revealed when it arrived in 2009.
Bigger engine, wider hips
The Gen II car, in typical RS fashion, honed an already enticing, exciting package. No sooner had the original 997 been launched than the GT department was looking at ways to improve it.
Technological creep is inevitable and the 997.2 brought things like active engine mounts, traction and stability control, even wider tracks and refinements to all the control systems.
The engine swelled in capacity by 200cc to 3.8 litres and now developed 450hp, making it capable of covering the 100km/h sprint in just 3.9 seconds.
There was an even greater focus on aerodynamics and all the improvements were made not just to improve performance on the road and track, but also to allow Porsche some bragging rights at the industry’s performance car benchmark in Germany, the Nurburgring.
The 997 Gen II RS’s lap time around the ‘Green Hell’ would be 7:33 — some 10 seconds quicker than the 996 GT3 RS.
Today there’ll be no lap time around the Isle of Man, but this car feels sensational on these roads.
It’s the RS that most covet — ignoring the limited-run of 600 4.0-litre GT3 RSs Porsche built with 500hp and improved aerodynamics.
That’s because it retains the purist driving appeal of a manual transmission, hydraulic steering and huge performance from the iconic Mezger engine.
Weight was around 5kg than its predecessor and it came with centre-lock wheels and the RS’s most overt graphics to date.
This can be considered something of the pinnacle of the analogue car and I love it. It’s so loaded with feel, having modern levels of grip and performance, yet delivers engagement like little else.
The transmission plays a part, of course, but it works as such a brilliant whole that every shift is to be savoured, the quick revving engine begging for a heel-and-toe downshift, or to be wrung out to its maximum.
Do that and it’ll cover ground at indecent speeds, though even it’ll have a job keeping up with what replaced it.
Yet another new level
The Gen II 997 GT3 RS might represent something of the end of an era, but the 991-series GT3 RS that replaced it took the RS to a new level.
Now equipped with a PDK transmission mated to a new 4.0-litre engine, it retains all the hallmarks of the RSs before it, but fast-forwards into the modern era.
I’ll not deny missing the interaction of the manual transmission, especially on the real roads on the Isle of Man, but the efficiency of the paddle-shifted seven-speed PDK transmission is difficult to fault, as it allows the performance to reach new heights.
The engine may no longer boast about sharing its DNA with the GT1 race car, but as legendary as that flat-six was you’ll not feel short-changed with the 991 GT3 RS’s 4.0-litre unit.
It’s got a ridiculous appetite for revs, the 500hp engine firing around to its redline as quickly as you can dish out the gears to allow it. There’s loads of feel, but also a slight clinical detachment, which is contrary to the cars before it.
It’s a necessary evil in a modern performance car world, perhaps, but however slight it does detract from the essence of the RS — that puristic, driver-focussed feel that’s long been the signature.
Against its contemporaries it’s the benchmark, but lined up here with its family it’s apparent that — however mighty it is — the 991 GT3 RS lacks some of the joy.
That’s partly because its levels of performance, grip and traction are so high that it’s difficult to do anything but scratch away at the fringes of its capabilities rather than revel in them.
Best of the breed
Which brings me to the new car, the Gen II 991 GT3 RS. Our heavily embargoed drive took place before the car set a Nurburgring lap 24 seconds quicker than the car before it, dipping under the seven-minute threshold that signifies the fastest of cars.
To put it into perspective, the 6:56.4 lap is a second quicker than a Porsche 918 Spyder. That’s incredible, and night and day quicker than the Gen I car.
I’ll admit that prior to driving it I was slightly ambivalent about this Gen II car, because it was difficult to see how it could conceivably be any more rapid or capable than the RS it replaces.
But if it’s apparent within a few moments on the road then the lap time drives home the point: this is a vastly better car.
It’s clear here where Porsche has made the gains. The suspension is instrumental, not the 15kW and 9000rpm redline — though they’re incredible — nor the PDK shifting or revisions to the differential or aero, but the way the chassis manages the car’s output.
The suspension is lifted right off the GT2 RS, which takes its solid-mounted set-up almost completely from a 991 Cup race car set up for the Nurburgring.
It’s taut, but controlled, and the massively stiff spring rates are countered by beautifully judged damping, as well as softened-off anti-roll bars.
The result is incredible; the way this car drives takes the old-school feel of all those cars before it but adds performance that’s in the next sphere.
That it feels so demonstrably different to the car it replaces is a shock, with every single element of its make-up, in Preuninger’s words: “enhanced for precision and accuracy”.
That’s worked to make this a remarkable car — arguably as significant as the car that started it all. It really is that impressive.
It’s a car for now, even if the days for its naturally-aspirated engine must now be surely numbered.
Each car here defines their respective eras yet remains true to the RS template, but the current GT3 is the most complete of them all.
If you want the full review of what today’s RS is like to drive on the road, click here.
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