Porsche plots back-to-basics GT-badged 911 with a focus on driver involvement rather than lap times
Porsche is working on a new GT model to go with the existing 911 GT3 and GT3 RS that is unrelated to the GT2 RS already believed to be in the pipeline.
The new car is thought to be an entirely distinct entity from any that has been seen in the 16 years since the introduction of the original GT3 in 1999.
The new car will have simple driving pleasure as its focus, meaning it will be radically different from the track-based RS models and the standard GT cars that are designed to be usable every day.
The new GT car will not be engineered specifically to set competitive lap times or provide a sensible means of daily transport. Instead, it will be set up to maximise feel, response and driver interaction. Crucially, it will mark the return of the manual gearbox to the 911 GT range for the first time since the demise of the 997 generation in 2011.
It is not clear what form the new car will take or when it will make its debut, but its existence stems from an acknowledgement within Porsche that making a car as fast as possible and as enjoyable to drive as possible are objectives now sufficiently distant from each other for no one model to be able to effectively bridge the divide.
The new car is expected to lose much of the aerodynamic addenda that has become synonymous with GT models and come with the narrower body used by base-spec 911s.
It will most likely have skinnier, less grippy tyres and a chassis set-up dedicated less to the generation of grip and more towards providing a friendly on-limit balance.
The engine is likely to be similar or identical to the normally aspirated 3.8-litre unit used by the current GT3, despite the move to turbocharging for all non-GT 911s at the end of this year.
There is no information concerning a name for the car. As recently reported by Autocar, Porsche has trade-marked the GT5 name, but that would be incongruous as it would numerically and hierarchically sit below the Cayman GT4.
It is also thought not to be called Club Sport, as that is also a name Porsche associates more with the track than the open road.
The new car will not appear until next year at the earliest, with the end of this year already given over to the launch of the second-generation 991-based 911, which was spied in testing last week.
Read more:
Blog - How the Porsche Cayman GT4 is inspiring the new 911 GT
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