Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
When it comes to the argument of which Porsche 911 is the king of the hill, you won’t see me dismiss the 997 GT3 RS 4.0. Porsche and the GT team basically did everything they could to crank 500 horsepower out of a flat-six squeezed in the back of the 997. At the time, this was supposed to be the last GT car with a true six-speed manual. So when these dropped, all 600 were jumped on like wild dogs on meat. Now ten years later, double the MSRP and you can take one home. Fair deal?
Porsche GT cars are hotter than ever it seems. If you aren’t ordering a new GT3 RS with paint-to-sample, 18-way adaptive sport seats, carbon ceramic brakes and $72,000 in other options, are you even living? Lots of people literally obsess over these things and I guess it makes sense as these are big decisions, like whether or not to spring for the $1,300 carbon fiber door sill plates. However, back when we were still in the infancy stage of Porsche GT car madness, things were much simpler thanks to one of the cars that started it all: the 996 GT3 RS.
Just 682 were ever built and exactly zero were configured for the North American market. You had no choice of color. Carrera white and you’ll like it. However, you did have a choice of wheel and sticker color of either dark red or light blue. From the cars that are publicly seen, it seems like most of them were optioned in red. These RS cars were exactly what you’d expect. A more hardcore version of the 996 GT3 that admittedly was already a pretty raw car. The RS received a bunch of lighter body panels, a Mezger 3.8 liter that could rev to 8,200 rpm, and some other small changes that is detailed below if you really want get nerdy about it. Now that everyone is into respecting their elders, it only was a matter of a time until one of these made its way to America. This 2005 up for sale in California is a left-hand drive Japanese car that is fully EPA and DOT compliant for road legal use in America thanks to the 996 GT3 RS being on the NHTSAs list of cars that can be imported through a registered importer. The price? A brand new 2019 GT3 RS, plus a Cayenne for your significant other, is less expensive than what you’ll have to pay to take this one home.
Like most enthusiasts, I tend to prefer the smaller, air-cooled Porsche 911s of yesteryear. However, one recent 911 keeps vying for my attention, the 997 series 911 GT3RS. Specifically, when it is painted in Porsche Green, such as this early build car for sale in Rhode Island. With a series of lighter weight components, the GT3RS weighs in 44 pounds less than a standard 997 GT3. The RS would serve as a base for homologation that packed 300 bhp per ton. Just under 2,000 examples were produced, with 413 finding their way stateside.
Let’s get back to featuring Porsche performance rather than beauty. We’ve shown recently a few examples of track-focused cars, either those with extensive work from…
Comments closedI’ll just get this out of the way: the GT3 RS is my favorite car; it is the money-no-object car that I’d buy amongst the…
1 Comment
