There was no trick to liking the 991.1 GT3 RS. It was very likeable. It had an impossibly hard act to follow in replacing the God-like 997.2 GT3 RS 4.0 - a model still widely considered to be among the very best sports cars ever made - but by being technically innovative and extraordinarily quick on track (this is a 911l that eclipsed the Carrera GT’s time on the Nordschleife, let’s not forget) there were few who questioned Porsche’s capacity for moving the RS game on.
One of those people who obviously didn’t was Mr Richard Hammond, a self-confessed Porschist and serial buyer of top-flight 911s. Back in 2010, the Hamster declared himself (along with the rest of us) a diehard fan of the 997.2: “The way it will crest a ridge in the road or track and there will be a moment, a split-second when the front end goes light - you can feel through the steering wheel that it's a living, sensuous thing,” he wrote in TG. “The steering is fleet and fast, but still carries the authority to direct the compact, powerful car at your will. Using the steering on a 911 feels like being a meerkat in control of a pride of lions. The GT3 RS does everything a 911 has to do.”
Nevertheless, when the time came, evidently the 991 was too hard to resist. This one, with a predictably lengthy options list, was delivered new to Hammond in 2016. A spot of internet digging suggests its wheels might have changed in the intervening years (we’re certainly not complaining) although otherwise this appears to be the same Paint to Sample Grigio Campovolo GT3 RS, complete with black leather and Lava Orange Alcantara interior. Spec is in the eye of the beholder, of course - but for us, helped along by the Lava Orange roll cage and the 918 bucket seats, it works. As it presumably did for the buyers who snapped the car up in the wake of Hammond’s ownership.
When the RS was new, there was a fair amount of handwringing about the absence of a clutch pedal (as it had been for the original 991 GT3). But the Hamster was a vocal proponent of the PDK at the time, pointing out that it was impossible for the variant to deliver its core mission - i.e. circuit-lapping prowess - without the time-saving snappiness of dual-clutch automatic gearbox. This viewpoint was vindicated in the driving: the fusion of 500hp naturally aspirated 4.0-litre flat-six and fast-twitch transmission was less a functional advantage than it was a match made in track heaven.
The rest of the car, with its extra-wide body from the Turbo (a first for the RS), was shrink-wrapped around the yowling powertrain. It was louder, leaner and much fizzier to drive than the GT3, and the extent to which you dug that combination pretty much defined whether or not its premium made sense to you. For some, its road noise and pin-sharp relay of the road surface was too much. For others, it was a small price to pay for a sublimely frenetic - and yet wonderfully tameable experience - that would occur every time you exited the pit lane.
It would be interesting to know for how long Hammond hung onto his. Porsche didn’t take long to move onto the 991.2 version of the RS, which was sufficiently sophisticated in its chassis components to break the Nurburgring 7-minute barrier. The 992 version makes its predecessor’s aerodynamic package look positively quaint. But there’s a terrific amount to appreciate about the earlier 991, not least the idea that it might have been slightly more approachable than the RS models that followed it. At any rate, the £159,995 asking price - while still significantly higher than the £131,296 starting cost that Hammond would’ve breezed past - doesn’t seem like an unreasonable amount for what is assuredly one of the most memorable modern 911s.
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