New car news

29 January 2009 - 17:00

A new GT3? Yes please

Good news from Porsche – it will be showing the new 911 GT3 at the Geneva show in March. We rate the current car as one of the greatest ever, so the thought of a sparkly new, updated one has got us running around the office like excited spaniels.
 
OK, so it looks pretty similar to the last one and that’s because it’s still a 997 variant. But who cares?

Besides, it’s what’s underneath that counts. And Porsche has given the car a good seeing-to, hopefully making a great machine even greater. It has 316kW - that’s 15kW over the last car - while the engine has been beefed up by 200cc to 3.8-litres.

And it now has Porshce’s VarioCam system working away on the exhaust camshaft timings, optimising the torque/power/usability/emissions balance. Or so the boffins tell us.
 
All that science translates to a 0-100km/h time of 4.1 seconds and a top speed in 312km/h. And for the first time on a GT3, you’ll be able to turn the traction off in stages – ‘properly off’ is the correct mode... Just make sure you’re some sort of driving god before you go trying that.
 
It’s also stiffer than the last car, and some aero tweaks have helped eek out more performance too. There are also bigger brakes, which will be useful before corners, if you want to keep your Porsche in one piece.
 
We’ve just got one thing to say to all of that:
 
Yes Please.