At the Frankfurt Auto Show Porsche had the insane 500 hp 911 GT3 RS and the new GT4. Both of these cars debuted at the Geneva Auto Show and instantly sold out. It is curious to see Porsche continue to parade these cars about when you cannot buy one. And I mean absolutely cannot buy one. That is unless, you enter the murky market of way over sticker’dom. The GT3 RS, isn’t for sale, but you can find a few for $100,000 over sticker if you are lucky enough to have that much disposable income. After a few calls this week, I found two. Both went for $100K over sticker, but they were entertaining offers of $110K over sticker.
The GT4 is another interesting car and really reminds me a lot of BMW’s approach to 1M which became an instant classic. Four years out, the BMW 1M can still go at sticker – no depreciation in four years. BMW only brought 741 of the 1Ms to the US.
To build the 1M, BMW raided the parts bin from the M3 to use on the 1M. Porsche had the same philosophy on their GT4 by using a lot of the GT3’s hardware. It’s a great way to spread out the development costs of these low volume wonder kids. Porsche, I am told, is only bringing 600 GT4s to the US Market.
Regarding the GT4, Porsche finally put a 911 motor in the Cayman and let Wizards from Weissach’s GT racing department work their magic exploiting the full potential of the Cayman’s mid-engine layout. The GT4 borrows a lot of parts from its big brother, the 911 GT3 – same brakes, same front suspension. Many say the car has way more brake that it needs but who cares! Porsche says the GT4 laps The Ring in 7 minutes 40 seconds or about the same time as the previous generation 911 GT3. And purist rejoice, the GT4 is available in manual transmission only.
Porsche does have an annoying habit of discontinuing a car but leaving it on the “Build your Porsche website.” I don’t know how many GT4s I have built on this site, but I have literally been told by multiple Porsche dealers you cannot order one. Arrrggghhh! Even the 911 GT3 is not being built now, despite you can configure it as if you could get Porsche to build one for you. If you can afford the 911 GT3 RS base price $176k which they actually are currently building, see paragraph one up top. They are all sold out! BMW did the same thing to us on the BMW 1M, so I suspect both manufactures were surprised with how much demand there was for the 1M and the GT4.
Regardless, both the GT3 RS and the GT4 are engineering master pieces and true enthusiast cars. Trotting these exclusive, albeit sold out models, only adds to their mystique. It makes you want them worse. Porsche has that marketing technique nailed.
Porsche 911 GT3 RS
Porsche Cayman GT4
