Nick Jeffery
Surrey, UK
@npjeffery
@npjeffery
It’s been a busy month since my last column! It was great to finally get back to Bicester Heritage for the first Sunday Scramble event of 2021. Having had the PDK gearbox oil changed, the GTS was the preferred weapon of choice for the event. I have to say, after such a long time in lockdown, it feels great to be able to attend bigger events again!
Speaking of Bicester Heritage, the creative team there have just set up the ‘We Are Scramblers’ website and social media pages. I attended their inaugural event dedicated to the ‘hot hatch’, so elected to park the GTS away from the main driveway where the hot hatches were on display but still inside the main site, which made for some fabulous shots in and around the former WW2 RAF bomber station! There was an eclectic mix of metal on display, with refreshments and seating area at the Wriggly Monkey Brewery. I couldn’t make their second monthly event dedicated to British cars, but will be back!
A few of us attended the long-awaited Goodwood Festival of Speed on the Friday. Porsche Club GB had preferential parking at the rear of the main Porsche stand which was a really nice touch in the Club’s 60th anniversary year. The Porsche stand itself was as busy as ever with the UK debut of the 992 GT3 and GT3 Touring Package. I must confess to having mixed feelings around the latest iteration of Stuttgart’s finest. The 992 is a big car and the GT3 does nothing to dispel you from that notion. Putting my usual criticisms of the 992 generation to one side (electronic dash, silly door handles, bulk, more GT than outright sports car), my main gripe with the new GT3 is the fact it is no longer a pretty car. To my mind, the front and rear ends look awkward, the square ‘nostrils’ at the front aligned to the sheer amount of black plastic on display and the swan neck rear wing being the main issues. The Gentian blue Touring sat next to the Shark blue GT3 looked much better in my opinion, but still needs a ducktail rear spoiler!
Don’t get me wrong, I am starting to warm to the new model having followed one on a recent Spyder drive up to JZM. The noise is epic, even when limited to 7,000rpm during the running in period, and it has real presence on the road. Gentian seems to suit the car really well, although I have also been really impressed with a couple of PTS versions I have seen, one in Gulf orange, the other in Viola Metallic, both of which looked really good! I have said it here before, new Porsche models take a while to get used to then suddenly seem to be ‘under your skin’! We shall see…
As I write this column, I have just come back from two days at the Silverstone Classic, another huge event making a welcome return. The weather was patchy on Saturday and downright miserable and cold Sunday until early afternoon when the sun finally made a welcome appearance. Horrendous traffic management issues Saturday morning meant a one-hour queue just to get into the circuit off of the A43. I’m not sure if that was also the case Sunday morning as we opted to leave home at an ungodly hour to ensure no chance of it happening again! Unlike Goodwood’s Festival of Speed earlier in the month, there was plenty to see and do with epic action on track. This, therefore, was no Silverstone Classic ‘Lite’ and the event was so much better for it.
It also occurs to me that for all four events referred to above, I took the GTS. A reminder then what a versatile and epic car it is! It’s approaching 46k miles now, 18k miles in my care, and never fails to put a smile on my face. It really is all the Porsche you could ever need, equally at home on road or track, and I could only see myself replacing it with another GTS.