The GT2 RS is marginally wider and lower than its predecessor. It also boasts a spicier PSM stability control setting; the tie rods, transverse arms, and spring strut lowers are attached to the body via zero-tolerance ball joints; a pair of so-called rear helper springs keep the main springs under tension even when the vehicle is momentarily airborne, which was thankfully not the case when I drove it.
Feeling and looking like a drenched wharf rat when the planet backed us into 93-degree humid heat well before noon, I had calmed down somewhat, because this obviously was no nasty beast as long as one drove it within the limits of adhesion. Which are high enough to eliminate 99 percent of competitors by simply outcornering and outaccelerating them. In the latest Swabian batmobile, 0 to 60 mph is an impressively swift 3.4-second affair. But to experience the real steamhammer effect, you need to leave the takeoff wheel spin behind you. After all, this hyperactive two-seater needs a mere 9.8 seconds to roar from naught to 125 mph, and a mere 20 seconds later you may tick the top-speed box. That's what 620 hp will do for you when it's installed in a car that weighs only 3020 pounds. This data might look invincible -- but the four-wheel-drive Turbo S nonetheless wins the sprint duel by 0.3 second, is only 9 mph less rapid overall, and costs a cool $85K less.
After half a day and many miles, the car and its driver have finally adjusted to each other. Lobster-faced and drinking water at a rate that almost matches the Porsche's thirst (about 14 mpg), I am now ready to find out whether the new GT2 is as unfriendly and unforgiving as its predecessor. Beating that model on the 'Ring by a full fourteen seconds should have been plenty of warning, but in an overly optimistic mood swing, I turned off stability control. Nah. I'll also deactivate traction control and see what happens. Let's check out whether these reflexes still work. The first run through a glassy-surfaced second-gear left-hander is spot-on. A bit of smoke, a nice slide, everything under control -- bingo. But the second run puts the alarm systems inside my brain on alert. The car understeers more emphatically, it takes a more determined effort to make the hot and grippy rear tires come unstuck, and the wide road suddenly narrows at the exit of the corner. You can guess the rest of the story: even more understeer, the slide commences even later, Monsieur Michelin's finest kiss the soft shoulder, and the car spins, which makes my heart rate go through the nonexistent sunroof.
What happened? When we stop for more water, I take a closer look at this 911's spec sheet. It reveals a maximum boost pressure of 23.2 psi, twice as much as Porsche quotes for the Turbo, along with 516 lb-ft of torque at 2250 rpm. Not to mention the 620 hp that the 3.6-liter engine dishes up at 6500 rpm. Compared with the Turbo and the previous GT2, the new model clearly needs higher revs to produce more oomph. As a result, it's an even sharper weapon, more black and white than a spectrum of grays, tuned for peak performance rather than friendliness. Second attempt, this time with a little more feeling. Stability control off; traction control on. An odd mixture -- almost every other manufacturer does it the other way around. Having said that, the setting generates a little more attitude, because it sedates the watchdog that oversees the transverse and diagonal forces. This time, I don't spin.
But this time, the car dictates the pace, the rhythm, the degree of extrovert attitude. This time, I physically feel the asymmetrical diff locking up to enhance grip and traction. This time, the chassis firms up in a semiactive manner, doing everything it can to keep the car on course. Although the tires squeal in protest, the fat and almost treadless 325/30YR-19 Pilot Sport Cup footwear in the rear sticks to the blacktop like maple syrup to your best tablecloth.
After a few haphazard tries, frustration sets in. Not so much about the sizzling, crackling, and now-parked 911 but about the obvious inadequacies of the man whose mission it is to master the monster. We spend the afternoon trying to find stretches of empty road, which ain't easy in the middle of the summer holiday period. On the autobahn, this car has no enemy but one's weaker self. Unlike the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, the Nissan GT-R, and the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, which make high speed a relatively virtual zone you enter and leave without lowering or raising your visor, the GT2 RS is intense enough to create tension, noisy enough to phonetically distract, and demanding enough to constantly readjust the focus of your field of vision. As long as you keep your foot down, though, even 200 mph is unlikely to trigger instant cardiac arrest. But the mix of midcorner lift-off and ambitious g-forces remains as hair-raisingly eerie as it always has been in Porsche's rear-engine sports cars.
Once more, it takes time to reacquire the appropriate laissez-faire attitude. This car will sort itself out. It doesn't need an extrafirm grip, minute throttle-angle alterations, or constant corrections at the wheel. It can sort itself out. Bumps may dislocate your glasses, hydroplaning grooves may induce a roller-coaster wallop, and expansion joints may slice your flight path into disorderly pieces, but the car always sorts itself out. Until it starts to rain, until crosswinds enter the equation, or until the radius of a sixth-gear eight-tenths curve is a lot tighter than you remember it.
One can brake so late in the 911 GT2 RS that it's almost ridiculous. But of course you don't, because your passenger would jolt forward like a crash-test dummy and because public roads are poor playgrounds. This Porsche is fitted with six-piston front and four-piston rear calipers, with drilled and ventilated carbon-ceramic rotors and lightweight brake pads. To make the most of deceleration potential, the GT2 RS comes with extralarge heat-dissipation ducts in the front and with trumpet-shaped air intakes in the rear. When hot, the stopping apparatus shrieks like an old freight train, but that's a small price to pay for braking performance that calls for a replacement set of neck muscles by the end of the day. It's not just the fast-rewind negative acceleration that takes your breath away. It's also the urgency with which this Porsche squashes surplus energy that establishes real confidence, for the first time during this drive. Although it always helps to set the car straight before dropping the anchors, the computers have learned to cope very well with sudden changes like weight transfer, changes of direction, marginal adhesion, and split-friction surfaces. In the wet, it's a completely different ball game, because the Cup tires are very good at water-skiing but quite poor at carving.
One last time, we go out to explore our mutual limits. In more ways than one, the GT2 RS reminds me of the old Ferrari F40. Raw, extreme, basic, and yet very high-tech. In the F40, massive turbo lag followed by a mighty underhood explosion was what kept deflecting the line in heart-stopping fashion. In the GT2 RS, the flows of power are much more subtle. The two chargers work together, not in sequence. Throttle lag has been superseded by telepathic obedience. The torque curve is now shaped like a low, long plateau.
What does this mean to the captain at the helm? That he has even less time to respond, that the forces are even more brutal, that catch and release has turned from routine to a form of art. If you can find a reasonably smooth surface, a late sidestep followed by a brief correcting flick at the wheel is about as much drama as you want to induce. But those long slides that used to paint an unforgettable smile on one's face are much harder to ride out in this 911, which is always ready to bare its teeth. Although carefully massaging the throttle sounds like the easiest trick in the book, the ultrawide rear tires keep fighting the torque wave because their goal in life is to slice, not to slide.
I'm not sure if there exist enough rich Walter Rohrl-like bravados to fully relish the true potential of the ultimate rear-wheel-drive 911. Although I did approach the car with more respect than any other Porsche currently in production, my awe for the wild thing kept growing in the course of the day, and by evening, I handed back the key with a mix of relief and reluctance: Relief, because we have all the photos in the can and the car went back unscratched. Reluctance, because I could not pluck up enough courage, competence, and confidence to work this car through its paces and stay on top of the game at all times. It's not just the random snap oversteer that makes gray hair go white, it's also the almost forgotten counterswing that follows which proves that some skills don't age nearly as well as red wine. On a track, this is bound to be an almost invincible tool for the brave and gifted. On the autobahn, the GT2 RS has all the go one could ask for but not enough refinement so that one would be comfortable relaxing. On secondary roads, the most venomous 911 this side of the various Clubsport editions has got what it takes to throw down the gauntlet to any Ferrari, Lamborghini, or Bugatti. Except, perhaps, an adequately talented driver.
Photos
http://www.automobilemag.com/reviews/driven/1007_porsche_911_gt2_rs_bmw_m3_gts_drive/photo_00.html
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