Want a GT3 that won't rattle your fillings out? For the price of an RS upgrade, Manthey Racing can make that happen. Every time you think there can't possibly be room for yet another variant of 911, Porsche says, "Hold my beer." Porsche long answered owners' requests for a more track-focused GT3 by directing them to the GT3 RS, but here's an alternative answer. Keep your GT3—just fit it with the kit developed by Manthey Racing.
This one's a bit different. Instead of being plucked from dealer inventory, it's an aftermarket kit—one that costs $70,657 before tax and installation. It offers no more power and removes no weight, which makes it something of a hard sell, you'd imagine. Put it this way: You've got to buy into the idea of this kit and care deeply about Manthey and its expertise.
At the core of it, fitting this kit removes about 5.5 seconds from the GT3's Nürburgring lap time. But that's not why you should care about it. Instead, point your attention to something Car and Driver editor-in-chief Tony Quiroga wrote about the GT3 last year: "The softest damper setting is Sport, and it's stiff enough to send your coffee shooting out of your Yeti and onto your cords."
View Price on AmazonFit the hardcore Manthey kit, and that won't happen. Because it rides better and is more supple and fluent than the standard car. And yes, still 5.5 seconds faster around Germany's most famous track. Weird one, huh? Manthey was a super-successful race outfit using 911s to win at Le Mans and the Nürburgring 24 Hours. It won so heavily that in 2013 Porsche bought 51 percent of the business.
Manthey carried on racing, and Porsche carried on doing road cars. In 2017, the GT2 RS held the Nürburgring road-car lap record, at 6:47.25. But then along came Lamborghini with the Aventador SVJ, and then AMG with the GT Black Series, lowering the record to under 6:43.62. Porsche wanted to fight back, but with no new GT2 in the pipeline, what could it do?
What Porsche did was call its racing partner and ask for help. However, that help had to be very specific, because Porsche wasn't about to put the GT2 back through the frustrating process of homologation. Thus, the resulting car couldn't have less—or more—aero drag, be lighter or lowered, use more fuel, or feature any engine mods. It had to fit the exact same boxes. And it had to be fully warrantied by Porsche, with components put through the same durability tests.
And yet, targeting only aerodynamics and suspension, Manthey managed to improve the GT2's lap time by four seconds and reclaim the record. Ever since, Porsche has allowed Manthey to take an RS and make it faster. Equipped with Manthey's package, the 992.1 GT3 RS's lap time fell by four seconds, and the Cayman GT4 RS's dropped by more than six seconds.
So what fairy dust is Manthey sprinkling on these cars? Let's have a look at this new GT3. Outside, you'll notice the rear wheel spats (which help smooth airflow leaving the car) and the bigger rear-wing end plates (designed to angle the air inward so it stays attached over the lower ducktail wing element). But it's what you don't see that contributes most to a total downforce figure of nearly 1200 pounds at 177 mph.
The front splitter protrudes 0.5 inch farther and curves upward to channel more air underneath. Once there, it's grabbed by a series of new, deeper turning vanes and directional elements, some up to 60 inches long, that guide the air around. Downforce at the front axle is up 30 percent, and the larger diffuser in the back is borrowed from Manthey's GT3 RS.
Source: caranddriver.com
