Post-June arrival for 911 racer for the road.

 THREE hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars will buy you the car – the talent required to extract the best it has to give is presumably priceless.

Those Kiwis imagining they are up to the challenge of the new 911 GT3, which Porsche has just unveiled to the world, have just a few months to limber up; deliveries are anticipated to begin in the second half of 2021.

What’s so special? If you have to ask, you know nothing about this type. Basically, though, it comes down to this: Often, the adage 'race car for the road' is a descriptive that kind stretches the reality. Except, apparently, when it comes to the 992 GT3. According to one overseas’ journalist who has experienced this new model, it “feels like that hackneyed old adage has never been more apt.”

Because? Primarily, it’s down to the GT3's free-revving, naturally aspirated 4.0-litre flat-six engine being shared, 'practically unchanged' in Porsche's own words, with the 911 GT3 Cup competition car.

And is based on the drivetrain found in the 911 GT3 R, another motorsport icon. So, effectively, this road car has the beating heart of a full-on racer.

Said 4.0-litre lump delivers 375kW, an increase of 7.5kW from the previous GT3 and matching the ultra-rare 991 Speedster. I has a top speed of 320kmh in full old-school manual form, or 318kmh with the optional dual-clutch PDK. Either way, it accelerates from 0-100 kmh in 3.4 seconds and is faster than the previous GT3.

That has allowed it to do a lap of the 20.8km Nürburgring Nordschleife in 6:59.927s in the hands of development driver Lars Kern; it can do the shorter 20.6km track used as the previous benchmark in 6:55.2s. So either way it's a 'sub-seven' car. When the GT3 first appeared back in 1999 as the 3.6-litre 996 variant with 268kW, it was a 'sub-eight' vehicle at the Nürburgring and that was in the hands of the legendary Walter Röhrl. That's progress for you.

It's not just the mighty engine that the Porsche 911 GT3 takes from competition vehicles, but much of its aerodynamic and chassis make-up, too. It has double-wishbone front suspension, for instance, while that distinctive rear wing has a swan-neck arrangement for the supports. Both it and the rear diffuser originate from the 911 RSR.

Overall, the aerodynamics are said to offer higher levels of downforce than the old GT3, all without noticeably increasing the coefficient of drag. The downforce can be increased even further if you (manually) adjust the rear wing and diffuser elements, to provide higher cornering speeds on track.

The bodywork is wider than the old 991 GT3's shell, while the 992 also runs on larger, forged alloys than its predecessor and it has 'additional technical features' too. The manual tips the scales at just 1418kg, while the PDK is not far behind at 1435kg. This trim figure is achieved by the deployment of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) for the front bonnet, as well as thinner glass in the windows, 'optimised' brake discs and those aforementioned wheels being forged.

Even the cover for the rear-seat compartment (the GT3 is a two-seater, not a two plus two) is designed down to the merest gram, while a full sports exhaust system with infinitely electrically adjustable flaps shaves another 10kg from the Porsche's mass.

Despite the exhaust, the GT3 nevertheless manages to conform to the Euro 6d-TEMP-EVAP-ISC emissions standard, although 283-304g/km of CO2 and fuel economy of between 13.1-12.9 litres/100km is fooling nobody in terms of the environmental gains.

Oh yes, and about that. Regardless that it has committed an electric future with the fully-battery Taycan and a plug-in hybrid Cayenne, Porsche has absolutely no intention of developing any level of electric-assistance for the 911. When fossil fuels become too rare, the hope is it will be sustained by man-made alternates.

On that note, Porsche is so serious about synthetic fuels it is in partnerships with energy firms Siemens Energy, AME and Enel and the Chilean petroleum company ENAP, with the ambition of  developing a plant for the commercial production of such go-juice on an industrial scale. The first stage, called Haru Oni, is set to use southern Chile’s “excellent” wind conditions to produce synthetic fuel, aka e-fuel, with the aid of wind power.

The plant is set to be in operation by 2022, and will ramp up to producing 55 million litres of synthetic fuel by 2024, and roughly 10 times that amount by 2026. Porsche CEO Oliver Blume has outlined the motive for the project to Britain’s Autocar magazine, saying: “Their advantages lie in their ease of application: e-fuels can be used in combustion engines and plug-in hybrids, and can make use of the existing network of filling stations.”

Back to this car. The cockpit takes its design themes from the regular 992, but there's a new feature called the Track Screen. In this setting, at the touch of a button, then the 911 GT3's two digital displays that sit either side of the central rev counter (which reads to 10,000rpm) switch to showing information such as tyre pressures, oil pressure, oil temperature, fuel levels and water temperature, all of which Porsche says are essential when driving fast on circuit.

There's also a visual gearshift assistant, with coloured bars to the left and right of the rev counter, and a shift light that comes, once again, straight from the racetrack.

The announced price for NZ is just for a standard car. Who wants that, right? There are numerous individualisation options from the Exclusive Manufaktur range.

These include a lightweight roof made of exposed carbon fibre, door mirror tops also rendered in carbon, darkened LED Matrix main headlights and matching Exclusive Design rear lights that reduce the red on display when they're not illuminated. Any model with black alloy wheels can have a pinstripe around the rim of the alloys in either Guards Red or Shark Blue. The rev counter, the Sport Chrono dash-top stopwatch, the seatbelts and the trim strips can all be finished in the same colour as the body, or in another shade of the owner's choice. There's even a matching watch, from Porsche Design, exclusively for those buying the car.