Chris Harris on Cars | New Porsche 992.2 GT3 first look!

Hello all. Bit of privileged access here. This is how Porsche shows us the new GT3 and GT3 Touring. These are the second generation 992 cars. So welcome to Stuttgart, a hidden studio for an exclusive sneak peek at these two new cars. There they are, GT3 and GT3 Touring. I'm a bit biased. I'm not going to ignore that, but I'm going straight to the Touring. And to explain the Touring, we have a factory fitted Andreas Preuninger, a well-known boss of these vehicles, to talk us around it because he knows more about them. And I don't have to remember all the numbers and the figures because he's got them in his head. Come on out you get. Even as a non-cost option, nobody would pick that boss. What would you be? M047 Andreas Preuninger. So, facelifted, or as they're now called, DOT2. Yeah, Gen2 DOT2 facelifted. 992 Touring. I think on paper, this is a car designed to make people that bought the DOT1 Touring really want a second generation car. So let's, first of all, I know the big news is inside. Let's talk about the outside, okay? So we've got... Looks like a Touring. It does look like a Touring. But there's quite a lot going on here, isn't there? Yeah, well, we've got a new rear end, new front end, we've got a new grille here. You can see this little ST-derived gurney flap. This is the big news though, isn't it? So talk me through why this is being put on here and the difference on this rear spoiler. It's mainly for aesthetical reasons, but not aesthetical because we think this is so beautiful, but we don't have to extract the spoiler to the same extent that we had it before because we want to keep that clean look of the car and disturb it as less as possible when it extracts. And it comes out a little bit later as well. When I follow a 992 on the motorway and the spoiler's up, it's like seeing a builder with the bits of his jeans showing the top of his ass crack. Well, maybe not quite like that, but I think I'm absolutely with you. The car looks better when it's not extracted. It's a beautiful shape. We need it. We need it for reasons that you know, driving dynamics. But we were trying to keep it a little bit lower than it has been before. And we made good experience with the ST's gurney in regard to that. So we carried it over. This is all new. This is just pulling air out of the car. Yeah, it vents the rear wheel well, which helps aerodynamics, which helps press the car down. This Touring is a bit more down for us than its predecessor. It's not much, but the balance of the car is great still. It's not a track car. It's a driver's car. It's a car for the road. It can't be tracked, as a matter of fact. But it's more that elegant, wolf in sheepskin 911. Yeah, yeah. And is all this diffuser new? Is this all new styling? Yeah, this is new styling. We've got the new rear lights that we have inherited from the base Carrera, as a matter of fact, a little bit of new looks. We got a B-spoke diffuser now on the GT3 Touring as well, which has different fins than the winged version in order to manage airflow in a kind of a different way than we do it on the GT3 winged car, that is a little bit more track-focused. Yeah. We have the same at the front, new front end and new wheels. I love these wheels. These are the normal aluminum wheels. They got breakthroughs now. They have a different rim on the outer side, so we save about almost two kilos on the car. And this is the aluminum wheel? This is the aluminum wheel. We have a magnesium wheel as well. If you go for a lightweight package, Leichtbau we call it, a very historical phrase. You've got to say that now. We'll go back to wheels. So this car can be ordered with what you call Leichtbau package. Right. Leichtbau means lightweight. Yeah. And it consists of the magnesium wheels, as a matter of fact. It consists of some carbon parts for the suspension, which lower the weight by five kilos. It has a carbon fiber roof instead of aluminum roof. This is not a Leichtbau package car, by the way. So this is an aluminum roof and it has some other gizmos that help the term Leichtbau and carbon stuff in the interior, door trim and door panels of the RS version of the ST. Gear lever. And the gear lever is a little bit shorter. It's the ST's gear lever with ten millimeters. So actually, if we were gear levers, I would be Leichtbau. You wouldn't because I'm shorter. There you go. Depends on the length of the arm. What was the last car that Porsche made that had the word Leichtbau in it? I think it was 964 Turbo. I would say so as well. 964 Turbo Leichtbau. The yellow one. Yeah, Leichtbau. With these little openings here, which were in the metal. Yes. Great car. Yes. I think this is, I would have to ask the archive guys. Yeah. But in my memory, that's right. Yeah. Okay. Back to wheels. So you can have a magnesium wheel. You can. In addiction or in combination, sorry, addiction. I'm always addicted. In combination with the Leichtbau package. The Leichtbau package has the magnesium wheel as a component. This, I always find it difficult because your design guys are so good. I know it looks new, but of course it doesn't always feel new because it's so homogenous. But this is cleaner than the last one, isn't it? It's a little bit sharper. It's a little bit cleaner. It's a little bit less curvy and feminine. No lighting on there at all. There's no lighting. The lighting is all in the main headlights right now. But there was lighting on the first gen, wasn't there? Right. Right. So that gave us more freedom to vent the brakes better. So we've got improved brake cooling on the car as well, both on the touring and on the winged version and under body flow could be enhanced and made better by use of this new front end. And is this smaller than on the normal GT3 or is this the same? This is smaller than on a normal GT3. Yeah. Because it has less downforce at the back. It has a different aerodynamic colour. What colour is this? This is called Oak Green Neo. So it's a new Oak Green. I think the lighting here doesn't do it justice. It's good, isn't it? It's very sparkly in sunlight. You can see it maybe on the back a little bit. It's very deep, very three-dimensional. Love it. Has it got a gold fleck in it or not? No, that's a trick of the light. But is this a PTS or is this a... No, this is a normal colour. A series colour? A series colour, yeah. So you can get a green touring with this interior. The interior, right, I warn you now, if like me you had a 992.1 touring and you really wanted rear seats, well, they've gone and done it. We talk to our customers a lot. We talk about first world problems or first world news. I know not many people own these cars but I always wanted, I had two tourings with no back seats, always wanted this. Look at this. Right, so have a look back there. First of all you've got a rear seat, okay, but did you notice how I accessed the rear seat? Did you? Look, this thing here. Look at this. Look at this now. So I've got a lever here to pull this seat forward. So we've got a folding carbon bucket seat to get into a rear seat. The touring is now complete. This is the only 911 you will ever need. Straight on to him now. Look, this seat, that's a lot of work. This is not just, it's not just a case of putting two new sets of seats in a car, is it? Talking through where it starts. This is two percent of the work. I mean you can put in the seats. We have the seats from the standard carrier. It's a homologation process because the car has to withstand all safety tests with two persons more because they calculate on two grown-ups in the back, which is maybe a rare thing. It's more like a seat for the kids and the 75 kilo each. You have 150 kilo more that you have to put into the car. You have to check the tyre, the tyre load. You have to look for the suspension. You have to homologate it in all the safety tests. You have to do everything all over again. So this is a major thing to homologate these things. Throwing in the back seat is just one thing, but the whole work is on another level. And these have to take the strike force of the person in the back as well? Absolutely, it's the same. But the normal bucket seat, the seat we had in the predecessor, could cope with that as well. Okay. Can you get the bucket seat in the, can you get the rear seat in the normal GT3? No, it's just a touring option because we think it makes sense on the touring. We talked a lot to our customers and it was always the touring guys that were demanding the seats in their car. I never had anybody trying to influence us in a way of, I need in my normal GT3 PDK car that I use on the track. Can you still get this car with PDK? Absolutely. You can have both options in both cars. I have to say it's a great looking seat. It is and it's comfortable and it has another trick up his sleeve for the track rats. Yes. For the ones that are going to the track. You can do it if you... What's this? How do you do it? You have to follow the line. I found it. Yeah, you found it. Look, you can take out the headrest. Now, if you're used to driving GT3 with a carbon bucket seat, again, first world problems, your head gets pushed forward because there's no scallop there for your helmet to go in. Now, you can take that out and your head goes in there but your helmet goes in there so you won't be shoved forward. It gives you another package space of five to seven centimetres and that's exactly what's missing when you drive the car with a helmet. So, this is neat and handy on the track. So, two major advantages on this new thing. There's also... This is killing me because it's basically they've answered all your problems if you like these cars. These are also heated. So, the big problem about the old carbon buckets was they weren't heated. So, now you've got a carbon bucket that gives you access to your rear seats and they're heated. If you need the heating, it's an option. Is it an option? Yeah. Okay, it's an expensive option. You can tick the box. I don't have a clue. Okay. We still chose to use the rotary switch that we know from the last generation. Yeah. So, we didn't go on this push knob thing. I think for a GT3, it deserves to have some old-school stuff in it and all the teams like that better. And with all the assistance systems that you have to have to homologate a car, you always have the problem sometimes you want to shut them off and you always have to do it over and over again and go through menus. It's a tedious job and it's disturbing. So, we have a button here that says assist and you push that once and you get a little menu with the speed warning, with the lane change thing and with the tired, with the coffee, this coffee here and you can just push that one button then swipe through here. So, you can't say this but what you can do is you can turn all the **** off straight away. I said that, not you. You said all of the valuable safety assets of the car. That are wonderfully, bespokely programmed for this car and work pretty awesome. They do. But mostly when I'm driving a car, this is the switch I touch. Okay, show us this dashboard again. Huh? The dashboard. I want to see that. It's digital now and everyone said, oh, they're digital and we were really not so happy about that as well because we love this analog tech but we spend a lot of time with all the guys driving the car a lot and we found a way to make it bespoke for the GT3. We got rid of some displays that we think are not really necessary in a GT car. So, you don't need a navigation system here in front because you got it here and we have a little thingy as well that is really handy. If you're going here, you can turn the tag and you have the 9,000, the max RPM in the top position at 12 o'clock. You can change that around and that's pretty neat. That's pretty neat. That's like a three liter RSR from 1974. Correct. So, this is the standard view and this is the turn view. In this display, you got everything you need. You've got your temperatures, you've got your rev counter, you've got your shift light, which is here, and you've got the tire pressure and the tire temperature. That's all I need to know. This is the signature screen with five analog mimicking gauges but they have pointers and I think they're nice. It does look pretty good actually. It looks pretty good and at night, it looks exactly the same and not reduced as it has been before. This is the third version that you can get. It's that one you can program on each side whatever you want to read and this is the three possibilities. That's the one. That's the one. The drag view is the one I'm using. I love that. Small thing but it's fun. Oak. So, this is Oak Green Neo. Neo means it's a new color. It's a lot deeper. Get on the configurator and get Oak Green Neo. Never ever close a windowless frame door with your hand on the glass. No, you shouldn't. This is a lightweight glass. Is it? You should close it like this and all you guys out there that have GT3s, don't do it. It's a super lightweight window. You don't want it to crack. Yeah. Okay, here we go. These are an option? This is standard but you can have it in black as an option which you shouldn't do because on a Touring, it has to have this chrome stuff. Yes. On the exhaust and here and silver wheels. It has to be silver wheels. It has to be silver wheels, definitely. This must have some changes over the last Touring. So, gear ratios? The gear ratio is 8% shorter. It's the gear ratio from the 911 ST. Okay. Which helps the engine really to push forward to give you this feeling of power and abundance and between curves, it's just snappier than the car before despite being the same horsepower level 510 but under the emissions of today which are vastly stricter than they have been when we introduced the first generation. Yeah. So, to give you nitrate oxide, for example, 33% down and the amount of particles in the emission stream is down by 40% almost. So, for a high revving non-turbo engine, it's really challenging to get out the horsepower but we made it. There's another catalyst, a set of catalysts in the car which was necessary for doing this but we overcompensated that with hotter cans from the ST with a different intake system. Yeah. So, the throttle, the single individual throttle valves are more flowing better right now and we've got new cylinder heads and a new program of the engine as a matter of fact. Isn't it sad that you make all those changes to the engine just to stay at the same horsepower? Just imagine if you could, those changes without the extra cats would have given you 530, 540, wouldn't they? We think that that's true. Yeah. That's true but you have to play by the rules and with the situation you have at hand, we're very happy that the engine didn't change its character. Yes. And it's even a bit more sporty now with the shorter gearing but yeah, you're right. But we think, I think, that's my personal opinion and if you look back like 997 RS4 liter, a long time ago, it was 500 horsepower and 1400-ish. Yeah. And I think still today, a GT3 sits perfectly right with around 500 horsepower and 1450 kilos, something like that. That's a sweet spot for that kind of car and I don't care if there's cars with 800 horsepower, there will be but they're a lot heavier and I think for the GT3, this is enough and this is all you need. I totally agree. My car, my yellow car, 991, which I... Banana. The banana, which has done many miles, I never get out of it and think it's too slow. I mean, why do you need more on the road? That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah, I totally agree and this package, it's just fast enough. If you need to go faster, you need your head looked at. It is, yeah. Okay, so we've got slightly softer suspension than before. Yeah, well, I wouldn't call it softer. We learned a lot from the ST's development. Yes. We had one of our guys on the ST exclusively for the damper calibration for almost a year. Just go figure. Holger Bartels, you know him. Yes. And we took a lot of experience that went to the ST into that car. Actually, wanted to make a bespoke setup for the Touring differently than for the GT3, which is a little more racetrack prone. Yeah. But we found out that all the changes that we made to make the car more compliant on a B-road didn't hurt the trackability. So, we thought, okay, let's do the same for that car as well. Okay. So, it'll feel, it has more grip and it'll feel a little bit more compliant without sacrificing any performance. Is it the same damper, just recalibrated? It is a similar damper. It's the next generation, but it's mostly calibration work because the spring rates of the car are 100s in the front, 140s in the back, are the same. Oh, really? So, it's the same spring rate, but with, okay. Yeah. Steering, any difference? The steering was greatly revised, I would say. Yeah. Again, the ST, from my book, in my book, has one of the best steerings ever. I know I say that every time we introduce a new car, but it's always true. So, it's continuous improvement. And yeah, we stole a lot from that experience as well, and that's incorporated in the steering as well. Has this got rear steer, this car? Yes. It does. So, the ST doesn't, this does? Correct. Okay. Correct. Let's move over to this white one. It's a Stormtrooper. This is the standard GT3. No, it's the GT3, the Queen Cheetah with the Weissach package, which you can see on this carbon fiber stripe, invisible carbon fiber that goes over the car. It's the first time we offer that in a GT3 car, in a base car, I would say. Yeah. And it consists of the similar components and with the RS, carbon fiber roof, race tags interior on the dash, carbon fiber roll cage, carbon fiber sway bars, and a rear sheer plate. So, and if you like to have them, the magnesium wheels, which we see on the car as well, in a new gold tone. I like that a lot. It looks technical. Okay. So, the interior of this car, broadly speaking, is the same as that. And also, the one thing I've not mentioned is, this folding bucket seat replaces the fixed and the folding bucket. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah. So, there hasn't been a folding bucket on a 992 anyway. So, the folding bucket was in a 997 or a 991. Yes. So, you couldn't get that on this car? No. Okay. There you go. But, I have to correct you, the interior is not the same. This features the race tags interior. Yeah. And with the Weissach package, you've got the carbon fiber trim all around. And on the Touring, we've got a bespoke leather that is impregnated. Yes. And we've got this corduroy lookalike seat insert. Yes. So, this is slightly different. This is a little bit different from the appearance, more towards how a race car would look, and more what the GT3 customer has learned over the years. The so-called race tags, formerly known as Alcantara, but it was a brand name. But, it's the microfiber cloth that we use, and it's very handy for race. So, Weissach pack is available on this car, but not on the Touring? No. Leichtbau is available on the Touring, and not on this one. And not on this one? Right. Okay. You learn something every day. But, to be perfectly frank with you, the Leichtbau package and the Weissach package, they have lots of parts in common. Do they? Yeah. But, we don't use carbon fiber roll cage in that car, and carbon fiber stripes above the car. But, the roof in itself, it's carbon fiber, but it's painted in that case. Yeah. You see that? That's a proving ground. I know. You've been driving there. I have been driving there. Yeah. Yeah. We've been doing this for quite a long time now. I think I first did a launch with you in 2006. Five or six. 997. Gen one. 3.6. Yeah. In Adria Raceway. Right. In Italy. Yeah. Long time ago. Great car, still. We've been quite lucky to have these cars for that long, haven't we? Yeah. It's the seventh generation of GT3 right now. Seventh. Seventh, yeah. Seventh. If you calculate facelifts into the game. Yeah. So, 996, one, two, 97, one, two, 991, one, two, 992, and now this one. Keep doing it. Thank you very much for all the fun you've given us. Thank you. Thank you very much. They look great. That green one, that's a problem for me. That's a problem because I want that car. I like that problem of yours. Yeah, that's a problem. That's the one I want.