So, let’s talk about the 2022 Porsche 911 GT3…
The 90’s – A Blast From The Past
Remember the 90s? The decade when camp was cool, The Pretender was on NBC and rap was beginning to become mainstream. The internet was AOL and precious little else. The Porsche 964 was out in the wilds.
It was also the era of overly optimistic speedometers in cars. We don’t know what made marques decide that they should exaggerate their vehicle’s stated speed by roughly 10 mph, but everyone from Nissan to BMW seemed to be doing it. Ironically, manufacturers were proud of their then new ‘electronic’ speedometer technology. Surely that should be more accurate, right? Fortunately, the trend, just like animal print dresses, is now a thing of the past.
Fast Forward Three Decades
Manufacturers today are usually pretty reliable in giving accurate figures for their vehicles. Until you get to Porsche that is. More specifically, their 911 GT3 which we recently reviewed. At the time of our review, it wasn’t yet available to the press to test drive. Yet now we are pleased to announce that it has recently been made available to thrash and critique.
That is exactly what Mat Watson of CarWow did. Well, sorta.
First, he displayed all the features that we had so much fun discussing (like the massive rear wing) in gorgeous technicolor. He also picked up on some things we didn’t notice. Things like fake rear air vents in the bumper (the price you pay for fashion), and that there is no hood to view the engine from the topside. Everyone carries a car lift in their back pocket these days, right?
In our review we had a lengthy discussion on weight versus performance. Just like a few extra pounds around your midriff will affect the way you work out, so the saving has meant a lot to Porsche with the 911 GT3 performance statistics.
So much in fact that they seem to have overestimated the lap times… When Mat got it out on track (it took a few attempts to get the tires warmed up and traction control functioning optimally) he managed to clock a 0-60 mph in 2.87s! This is significantly quicker than our initially quoted 3.2s. A number like this makes it almost as quick as the paper statistics for a 911 turbo S (but which has also been proven to be faster in reality).
Analyzing The Discrepancy
All of this made us ponder, why would Porsche do something like this? Surely they have access to the best performance drivers and track test equipment? While this may be the case, what we think what Porsche is trying to say is that there is one more unknown in the equation.
You guessed it; we’re talking about the driver. Just as ‘clothes maketh not the man’, so the driver defines what the car is actually capable of. As ironic as this may sound in today’s world of self-driving Teslas, traction control, radar assist and driver alert systems, there are some marques that still leave some margin up to the driver. True driver’s cars are getting scarcer by the day which is why we are seeing such massive appetite for the classic and used car markets (ignoring the COVID situation – nuff said).
As a kid in the 90’s it was great fun feeling as though you were going faster than in reality. So yes, Porsche could post an unbeatable lap time for the masterpieces that roll off the Zuffenhausen line but where would be the fun in that? Aside from producing some of the most phenomenal performance autos Porsche seem to have understood a philosophy few do ultimately; it all depends on you.