997 GT3 - Limited production: True or false?

[Pugsey]

GuyS. said:

No doubt that the 997 GT3 and RS's are amazing cars.

Porsche know that they have a hardcore fan base who love their stripped out road racers. But by adding traction control, adjustable dampers etc to make the cars more managable on the road they are hoping to make them more accessible to a wider audience. I would therefore assume they are planning to shift more units than previous models and are not just going to sell the required homolagation numbers.

Of course Porsche UK and OPC's are going to talk up limited supply but any dealer in Europe will happily sell you a full UK spec car RHD car with probably, a far shorter lead time.

I'm not convinced that making the 997 GT3 more manageable on road means that Porsche are aiming for a wider audience or necessarily planning to shift more units. More likely they are, finally, arriving in the 21st century. Colin Chapman proved a very long time ago that a car can handle well and ride comfortably at the same time and frankly if my 997GT3 will deliver me to the 'Ring in more comfort - and therefore prob. faster - than the prev. version and then lap faster too I'm happy and don't see it as either diluting the package or going 'mass market'. The bottom line is that non of us knows how many they'll build but however many it turns out to be we're talking small numbers in car terms - you'll be unlikely to find yourself sitting in a queue of them on your way to work. I intend to enjoy mine and won't be giving a seconds thought as to whether there are another 200 or 1,000 out there.

Edited by Pugsey on Thursday 2nd November 08:05

[GuyS.]

Pugsey said:

I intend to enjoy mine and won't be giving a seconds thought as to whether there are another 200 or 1,000 out there.

Thats exactly how it should be. I've owned my 996 GT3RS for just six weeks and so far have bumped into 11 other owners !

Enjoy you new car, I can't wait to see it at Brands.

[DanH]

flemke said:

DanH said:

flemke said:

997gt3 said:

I think of the world allocation as being a statistical irrelevancy.

It may be, but the cars aren't.

RHD is a dreadful thing to do to a poor, innocent car. Especially one that was designed to be driven on the left side of the road.

Apart from the fuel tank being smaller (due to budgetary considerations as far as I can tell), what disadvantages does a modern RHD 911 suffer from? Ok I grant you the stereo is designed for drivers on the left

p.s. not sure if you saw my previous post and tried to email me via pistonheads, but it doesn't seem to be working from the test I did earlier. ( danharman at hotmail dot com should work)

The pedal layout is less good; in RHD your body is skewed.
In a car without a big transmission tunnel, the squeeze comes by pushing the driver's feet towards the centre of the car.

The throttle pedal has to move, so there needs to be space between it (and between the edge of your right foot) and the carpet on the back side of the right wheel arch.
The dead pedal functions with the edge of your left foot jammed against the back side of the left wheel arch.
Therefore there will always be a tendency for your feet to be pushed leftwards. This helps to straighten your position in LHD, and makes it worse in RHD.
The offset does seem to be less in the 97 GT3 than in the 96.

Then in a RHD Porsche we have the indicator stalk being on same side as the gearstick, so that it isn't really posible to indicate when your left hand is extended towards the console, as it frequently is.
The Japanese have this one covered with the indicator on the right, but of course their cars are designed from the start for RHD.

Will have to try sitting in an LHD one then as I was pretty impressed with the layout when I got the GT3 compared to some of my previous cars. I'm pretty sure the Noble realigned my spine.

p.s. I won't enquire as to how you steer when using the indicator with your right hand and changing gear with your left, or are you constantly fiddling with the radio?