The car park in my local pub was always filled on Friday nights with grey Range Rovers. But in recent months I’ve noticed the electrical Porsche Taycan is starting to make its presence felt. And it’s easy, when I’m inside, to know who’s driving them, because they rush over and tell me. I try to be polite and look interested as they explain how fast their car is and how much more reliable it will be than the grey Range Rover they sold to buy it.
I turned up last weekend in a Porsche of my own, the new 911 GT3, and it felt good to be driving a petrol-powered, old-school dinosaur; futile, but satisfying nevertheless. It was as though I’d stuck a spanner in the cogs of a wind turbine.
On the face of it, Porsche hasn’t done much to update it. The engine is still a naturally aspirated 4.0-litre flat six, and it produces only a bit more power than in the old GT3. The car has been fitted with all sorts of eco clobber, but Porsche has shaved the odd gram here and there from the body panels and the interior and the windows so that, in total, it’s only 5kg heavier than the old car. In terms of straight-line speed, it is no faster from 0 to 100 and tops out at an identical 318km/h. But Porsche says the new car is way faster around the Nürburgring thanks to massively improved aerodynamics. It says, for instance, that at 200km/h the fearsomely complicated-looking “swan neck” rear wing, which can be adjusted manually by owners who really don’t have any friends, develops 50 per cent more downforce than the old car.
There are also significant changes under the car, because at the front there’s now double wishbone suspension, like you get on Porsche’s racing cars, rather than MacPherson struts. I couldn’t really tell much difference, though. The steering was always very, very good on a GT3 and it still is.
Another change is the fitting of a stainless steel exhaust system. At first I thought it would drive me a bit mad because it gives off a sort of baleful and hollow sound that rises and falls with even the tiniest movement of your right foot. Weirdly, though, I grew to love it, and not just because it was a constant reminder that this Porsche has an actual engine, not something from the back of a fridge.
I loved the interior too. My car had the optional PDK gearbox but the lever looked like the sort of thing you’d get in a manual car. And it was the same story with the starter button, which is shaped to feel like a key. Praise should also be heaped on the sat-nav and infotainment centre, which remains one of the easiest to use on the market. It is a bit strange, though, having a 21st-century screen and aircon and so on in front of you while just over your left shoulder there’s a hunk of scaffolding. Whoever heard of a luxury race car?
It’s not a race car, though. Not really. It may have tech that was spawned on the racetrack but it still feels like a sports car. Despite its considerable size, this is a car you fling around with gay abandon. It’s a happy car. A whizz-about-and-smile car. I mean this: it has more in common with a Mazda MX-5 than with a Ferrari.
There is a problem, though. The clever thing about the old GT3, which I liked and admired in equal measure, was that it felt like a sports car but, when you weren’t in the mood, it could settle down and behave itself. It rode beautifully, cushioning you from imperfections in the road surface. This one doesn’t. It’s fidgety and bouncy, all the time, like what we used to call a badly behaved child. At my age, I couldn’t live with it on a daily basis, and I dread to think how harsh the hardcore RS version will be.
This means the GT3 is a weekend car, something you’ll use only when the sun is shining and the roads are right and you’re in the mood. You may think it madness to spend nearly $370,000 on a car you will use only occasionally, but actually it could be worse. One of the men who rushed over to tell me about his new Taycan the other Friday explained he only really uses it at weekends when he’s “in the country”. Right. I see. So he’s bought an electrical eco car as a second vehicle. I think that really is the definition of insanity.
PORSCHE 911 GT3
ENGINE: 4.0-litre naturally aspirated six-cylinder petrol (375kW/470Nm). Average fuel 12.6/13.7 litres per 100km
TRANSMISSION: Six-speed manual or dual-clutch seven-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive
PRICE: From $369,700
STARS:★★★★
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