PORSCHE 911 GT3 RS

‘IT’S AN AERO-MONSTER, BUT A FASCINATING, MULTIDIMENSIONAL AND HIGHLY ENJOYABLE ROAD CAR TOO’ – JETHRO BOVINGDON

PERHAPS THE TOUGHEST DECISION WE faced this year was deciding if we should include the new 911 GT3 RS in evo Car of the Year 2023. Everything we had been told, even by Porsche’s own people, and had experienced the first time we drove it on a billiardsmooth, bone-dry track at Silverstone led us to believe that this is the RS that tips the car away from being a road and track machine to a track car you might, on very few and rare occasions, take on the road.

Too stiff, too complex, too unwieldy for the roads, to include the GT3 RS could be a step too far. After all, we’d be heading to the same locations that unstuck the Cayman GT4 RS just 12 months earlier and this latest 911 RS model makes the Cayman look like a Bentley.

We had to try it on the road before committing, so we did, or rather Jethro Bovingdon and James Taylor did. Both messaged to say it had to be in eCoty. We needed to ignore those who say it’s too harsh for the road, because it isn’t and it works. Book it. So we did. And even with all the cumulative years your judges have between them of driving stuff like this, nothing prepared them for seeing the latest GT3 RS parked up in a Travelodge car park, making a Huracán Sterrato look a little undercooked.

The next week and 1600km across the north of England’s and Scottish Borders’ greatest roads would determine if we made the right decision, or if Jethro and James made the wrong one.