One of our New Year's Resolutions this year was to be better about posting old content from 0-60's hardcopy days here on 0-60mag.com. Then, well, we got sidetracked by our Brooklyn sledding league in January, spent February in a seasonally-affected funk, and March Madness took up most of last month. But with this article, we're getting back on track! Enjoy.

Story: Chris Harris

Photography: James Lipman

It’s been a long, hot day. The shots are bagged and hopefully stored somewhere on the SD card; now all we have to do is sprint back to Weissach. We’re 25 miles the wrong side of Stuttgart airport, heading north and in danger of missing flights and angering wives.

Then the stars and planets align themselves with spectacular fortitude. First, the unusually empty Autobahn suddenly distends itself from three to five lanes—expanded and stretched like some Muggle-world highway in a Harry Potter magic scene—and then, soon after, the de-restrict sign comes into view, ambrosia for a force-fed Porker that claims to hit 205 mph.

If the past five hours have taught me anything, it’s that very little can hang with a GT2 RS over a dry, semi-wide road. It has freakish balance, grip, suppleness and, as befits something with a barely creditable 620 hp, firepower. But always in these solo-drive situations, the nagging suspicion remains that without the means to test your hunches, you can never be entirely sure just how fast a car is relative to its competition.

I’m pondering this when the toothy mug of a 599 slowly fills all three mirrors. Even if we’d brought our own 599 down here, we couldn’t have organized a more perfect location or situation for the two cars to be sharing the same piece of road.

The 599 man’s jostling, keen to see what the Porsche can do, carving a light slalom within his lane—left swoosh, then right—for a view ahead of us, presumably so we can’t jump on the throttle and use the leader’s natural advantage when the E320 CDI wagon we’re following finally realizes that 90 mph won’t suffice.

The Merc submits at a little under 95 mph, we’re in third gear, and I push the throttle pedal onto its stop. As the 911’s arse pushes into the ground, the Ferrari’s nose rises, and its image immediately shrinks in size before the rearview mirror momentarily loses sight of the Fandango. And then— bang!—into fourth it reappears in the wavering glass, noticeably farther behind. The GT2 RS devours fourth gear the way a Zo6 does second, all the while pulling cleanly—not just edging, but gapping—away from the 599. At an indicated 190 mph, with the Porsche still accelerating with alarming violence, we spot some traffic in the distance and back off. The Ferrari catches us and slopes up the inside, whereupon the driver deliberately widens his eyes, fills his cheeks with air and exhales, nodding. There was no comparison.

A while back, I spoke with a Porsche chassis engineer about this car, and his response was both memorable and disarming: “Honestly, this is the best 911 we have ever made.” Not only is it unlike anyone from Weissach to speak about their cars in such emotional terms, but on the rare occasion that the hyperbole tap is switched on, the flow is normally directed at a normally aspirated car: a GT3 or a GT3 RS.

So what is the GT2 RS? Is it a track-day special? Is it simply a fast road car, and, given its nametag, does it do enough to justify the badging?

Put simply, this is a GT3 RS chassis with modified 997 GT2 aero and a small nuclear device wedged in the orifice between the rear axle line and the number plate. Porsche claims a top speed of 205 mph, zero to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds and zero to 100 in 6.8 seconds. It does a lap of the Nordschliefe in 7:18.

The headline numbers read like unsubstantiated nonsense from some backstreet tuner: 620hp at 6,500 rpm, 516 lb.-ft. between 2,250 rpm and 5,500 rpm—up 90hp and 11 lb.-ft. over the 2007 997 GT2. The claimed curb weight, including fluids, is 3,075 pounds, a savings of 155 over the last version.

These are staggering vitals, and they point to a car that should, by rights, annihilate a 599 GTB. That car struts 349hp per ton, which, until recently, would have warranted some manner of health warning, but the GT2 RS’s 447hp per ton takes it beyond even the 599 GTO’s 412hp per ton, and there’s simply no point in doing the same calculations with torque figures, because the Porsche has 74 lb.-ft. more than the GTO and weighs 507 pounds less. And it uses a plain old manual transmission. Could be a busy stick, that.

So this certainly isn’t a tech fest from Porsche—in fact, if you were to define it conceptually, it would be the polar opposite of a 959. This is Porsche wanting to create a driving experience, and unmatched speed, by refining its existing technologies to the point that they cause lasting damage to your spine.

This car uses new variable-vane turbochargers, new pistons and intercoolers, a new ECU helping the car sustain a maximum 1.6 bar (up from 1.4), and a different exhaust. It needs to run on full-fat fuel.

The chassis is a little more involved. Taking the footprint of the recent GT3 RS, this car uses the same wider 245 section front tire (covered by an extended arch), and the rear 325 Michelin Pilot Sport Cup remains, but the compound is specific to this car. All of the chassis upgrades enjoyed by the GT3 RS over the base GT3 are carried over onto this car, but there is also some rose-jointing in the lower-rear arms to control movement even better and give improved response to the driver. All of the systems—ABS, traction control and ESP—have been recalibrated specifically for this car.

If it looks very similar to the last GT2, that’s because it mostly is. The new GT3 RS bootlid and wing wouldn’t work because of the Turbo’s vast appetite for air, so a more aggressive gurney on the rear and a larger diffuser were used to balance a more pronounced front splitter. The result is slightly less downforce than the GT3 RS, but still significantly more than a 997 GT2.

The weight-saving regime means the car uses a carbon bonnet, carbon rear air intake surrounds, carbon mirror covers and optional plastic front wings fitted to the test car. These are one-piece items and much cleaner than the standard front wing and plastic extension. Interestingly, they were so light that the headlights struggled to remain fixed inside them and kept popping out under extreme braking. That problem is now sorted.

It’s not an intimidating car, the GT2 RS. There’s none of the theater you enjoy in a 599 GTO; you just buckle up, plonk the familiar key in the familiar hole, fire the motor—which does nothing to suggest that it’s strong enough to power a small town—and move away. These initial static and low-speed encounters help define the GT2 RS, because they confirm that anyone craving the overt drama of cars like the GTO will be left slightly cold. Others will relish and savor the no-nonsense, honest Weissach-ness that seeps from this machine. Because nothing about it is superfluous. It is also oddly refined and practical. Somewhere in the past few years, Porsche has made a breakthrough in NVH and ride comfort with these fast-911 variants. They’re really no more fatiguing than a base car on sports suspension, and only over vertiginous sleeping policemen do you hear a peep from those rear ball joints. The ride comfort in particular is amazing, some of which must be attributed to the slightly higher-profile rubber used over the last car. The gearshift is tight on this example, and the throw very short indeed. From inside the cabin, trundling with the other traffic, the motor makes a rather flat, unappealing grumble behind you.

It gets your attention on half-throttle, though—oh, yes, it grabs you by the lapels, shakes you and yells, “Don’t fucking assume that just because I can idle smoothly, I won’t smash you into the Swabian undergrowth, because I will, you shandy-drinking English child!” Whoosh, whoooooosh, chirrup and, without even trying, you’ve gone from 50 mph to 110. Without even knowing how. Yum.

This’ll require some concentration. On the Autobahn, the only car I’ve driven that felt faster from 100 to 200 mph was a Veyron. If anything, the thrust above three figures is more impressive than the psychotic melee of throttle and gear changes that goes on below it. It tracks superbly at speed, too, above 150 mph, traditionally the point at which the 911’s nose begins to rise and wander. This car takes steering inputs and actions them with real, confidence-inspiring accuracy.

The big shock comes on some technical A-roads up in the hills. The finely balanced relationship between front-axle grip and power (perhaps more accurately, torque) delivery in turbocharged 911s is well documented. The last 997 GT2 was a stunning car because it gave the driver so much more confidence, and it offered the full collection of electronic safety underwear. This car represents a large improvement over that position. In short, it’s a GT3 RS with another 160-ish horsepower and a shed-load more torque. It has the steering delicacy, the bump absorption, the ability to communicate, and it just honks between bends like nothing else. It has rhythm, though: You don’t just squirt the straights, stick it on its nose, then open the taps as the lock unwinds. No, you can adjust the throttle mid-bend and rely on the front end to stay with you. But you have to build up to that point—drive the car smoothly, respect the grip levels and don’t chase the loud pedal too early in the turn. It just triggers the systems too early, although it has to be said they’re now so subtle and helpful, just as in the GTO, that you might as well leave them working the whole time.

I still find the relationship between the brake pedal and the throttle quite unnatural in these fast 911s, and this car, with its ceramic stoppers, is no different. Unless they’re red-hot, the middle pedal is about two inches too high, making it hard to merge some throttle into downshifts. Another problem is the noise, or, rather, the lack of it. I don’t mind that the exhaust is quite quiet—in fact, I like that—but as ever, the turbocharger mugs the induction system of its musical capabilities. A GT3 RS sounds far, far more exciting.

The brakes work tirelessly, grip—especially at the front end—is remarkable, and, of course, it’s a 911, so it has an inherent traction advantage.

Some questions to answer then: Is it worth $112,200 more than a GT3 RS? It just might be; it’s a stunning machine. Does the manual transmission hamper the package? Not at all. It adds to the sense that this is one of the last great bread-’n-butter driving experiences. If you’re good, the car’s good; if you’re crap, the car will most probably kill you.

And lastly: Is it special enough as an object? For some it won’t be, but that’s partly because the 911 package is now so complete, so usable, it rather undoes its own supercar credentials. And that’s perhaps the craziest thing of all about the GT2 RS—not that we saw an easy, indicated 209 mph on that trip back to Weissach after the 599 had gone to nurse its wounds, but that you could easily live with this car every day. Now, that would test one’s powers of restraint.

Specs:

Price: $245,000

Power: 620 horsepower, 516 lb.-ft.

Engine: 3.6 liter twin-turbo flat-6

Drivetrain: Rear-wheel-drove, 6-speed manual

0-60: 3.4 seconds

Top Speed: 205 mph

Weight: 3,075 pounds

Power-to-weight: 4.87 lbs./hp