Nobody has a parts bin quite like Porsche. After all, the German firm currently builds 24 different variants of the 911 sports car, each fulfilling a sliver of a sliver of a niche. Actually, make that 25, for Porsche has been rummaging around its parts bin once again. The Porsche 911 S/T aims to take components from the GT3 Touring and GT3 RS, then blend them together to celebrate 60 years of Porsche’s most iconic sports car. Oh, and Porsche also claims it’s “designed for maximum driving enjoyment on winding country roads.” A purported ultimate road-focused 911? Consider my eyebrow fully-cocked.
Under the deck of the 911 S/T sits the 518-horsepower heart of the 911 GT3 RS. This naturally-aspirated screamer spins to 9,000 rpm and comes joined for the first time to a close-ratio six-speed manual gearbox. No paddles here. That gearbox, by the way, features a unique lightweight clutch and a single-mass flywheel to pull 23 pounds of rotating mass out of the powertrain. As expected, only the rear wheels are driven, exactly the way a focused 911 should be.
Despite looking largely like a GT3 Touring, the 911 S/T doesn’t just get its heart from the hardcore GT3 RS. The front fenders and doors take aerodynamic inspiration from Weissach’s hottest 992 with deep channels to evacuate air from the front arches. The hood, roof, doors, and front fenders are all made from carbon fiber to save weight, and the pathological commitment to weight savings doesn’t end there.
The 911 S/T marries the GT3’s double-wishbone front suspension with an absence of rear-wheel-steering, saving precious kilograms. The wheels are made of magnesium, the battery is a lithium-ion unit, the sound insulation has been carved back, and the glass has been thinned out. The end result is a 911 weighing 88 pounds less than a 911 GT3 Touring with even more power.
However, perhaps the coolest part of the 911 S/T is how it doesn’t feel the need to shout. Despite containing all the ingredients to potentially build the most involving 992 yet, it’s far from a lout. Demure pastels dominate the press photos, the gurney flap on the rear end is tastefully restrained, and mandatory special badging is basically limited to a tiny emblem and a quaint crest on the rear deck.
Should you wish to pump up the visual appeal of your 911 S/T, might I suggest the Heritage Design Package? Sure, the pastel blue paint and white alloy wheels are neat, but the real appeal lies inside, where the interior is draped and fitted in rich cognac-colored leather and special cloth. This treatment really brightens up the cabin, so don’t be surprised if take rates are high.
Of course, high take rates are all relative. Porsche only plans to built 1,963 911 S/T models, a number chosen to commemorate the start of the 911 lineage. It feels a shame to make the ultimate road-focused 992 911 in such small volumes, but considering the immense price tag likely attached to this car, is it really that surprising?
Of course, the whole concept of “maximum driving enjoyment on winding country roads” is itself a curious quest. First, all 911 models are likely to be fun on a winding country road. And, second, with the limits of any new 911 being astronomical, will the 911 S/T really be immense fun without venturing into impound territory? Will the gears be short enough and the chassis light enough and the suspension compliant enough? I guess 1,963 very lucky people will soon find out.
(Photo credits: Porsche)
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
The Trackday Special Porsche 911 GT3 RS Is Back With Red Stripes And A DRS-Equipped Wing The Size Of Australia
-
The $223,450 Porsche 911 Dakar Has Adjustable Ride Height And Can Blast Through The Desert At Mach Jesus
-
The Porsche 911 Carrera T Is The Cheap Way To Get A Great 911
-
Jerry Seinfeld Reportedly Spent $1.2 Million On A Porsche 996 — But Not Just Any 996
-
What Makes The Porsche 356 The Perfect Automotive Canvas – The Autopian Podcast w/ Rod Emory
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.
I gotta say it: good parsh.
Now make a GT3 RS (complete with active aero) with a manual, dang it.
I was trying to figure out what 9M meant on that badge. Kerning, foulken, kerning.
I’m not generally a Porsche guy, but this really appeals to me. Normally aspirated with a manual and relatively light weight sounds like a recipe for a lot of fun.
captain pedantic calling. the interior isn’t cognac. I think it’s ascot brown or some other similar heritage color. cognac has been a standard interior color for a decade or more and is muuuch lighter.
cognac, as in the drink, kinda. but anywho
anyone got 300k and an allotment?
I knew they’d do something like this, the 911 R of last generation was too much of a hit to not keep going down that skunkworks-style development path of mass reduction.
“…features a unique lightweight clutch…”
“Lightweight” means either low weight or low ability, “light weight” always means light weight.
I dunno if this is an English/English vs American/English thing. Our languages are very similar.
Anyway, yay a new 911 variant that will make the people who can only afford to buy a base model feel like losers, while I still think of my 11 year old Toyota as my flashy new car.
Why not 19,630? They’d surely sell them all.
I wonder if it has to do with the CFRP body panels and pieces. I know the Aventador was limited because of the CFRP molds could only do a couple thousand takes.
This thing is damn near perfect
Maybe a dumb question, but how much difference does that amount of weight reduction actually make? Tenths of seconds? Hundreds?
For what? 0-60? 1/4 mile? Lap time around a specific track? Need to be more specific.
Regardless, they’re saying somewhere around a 3056lb (1386kg) fueled curb weight. That’s 75lbs lighter than a manual-equipped Mk8 Golf GTI.
For a car with a 4.0L engine, huge brakes, huge wheels (granted, magnesium), beefy suspension components, etc. … that’s pretty good, considering it’s not a carbon monocoque car. I mean, 964s weighed about that.
So for all that effort they managed to shave about 2% of the curb weight. And it still weighs 200 lbs more than a Corolla Hybrid. (Or, alternatively, the same as an E46 M3 CSL). Colin Chapman isn’t impressed.
Any of the above! I get that any weight savings is good, for the purposes of a car like this, but have zero sense how much impact it makes in any sort of racing (which I understand to be the only reason this really matters at all).
Realistically, figure the 98lbs in this case is somewhere like giving the car +16HP, given a GT3 Touring is around 6lbs per HP.
0-60 might be a tenth quicker. 1/4-mile not much different. Where it’ll matter more is braking and cornering grip. Being able to hack off 3 (low speeds) to 15-20 (higher speeds) of braking distance adds up, and you also have measurably less brake and tire wear.
On most tracks it’s likely worth at least a few tenths per lap, which at the speeds these things can do is an easy 3-4 car lengths. Not huge, but not nothing.
Honestly a lot of this exercise is to tune the NVH to make the whole experience feel more pronounced and “rawer” from a normal Touring. 911d aren’t trying to be something like an E-Class, but modern ones are extremely refined — this is a case where for buyers it’s better by being “a bit worse.”
this is great, thank you! Have always wondered this…
they should’ve aimed for 1,963 lbs. not sure it would still be a car, but pie in the sky and all that.
Or better yet, sell it for the original 1963 sticker price, $7795 for a Carrera hardtop. Even adjusted for inflation that would be less than $80K. Not cheap, but a bargain for a new 911, even a base model.