2022 Porsche 911 GT3 992 70 Years Australia Edition
Porsche celebrates 70 years Down Under with a very special GT3 edition
AUSTRALIA’S OWN 911 GT3 992
Porsche doesn’t usually do this sort of thing. For most of us, special edition models are often seen as a way for manufacturers to wring the last drops of juice from an aged model line. A special edition of a brand new model is something a little bit different. When it’s the very first time that there’s been a market-specific special edition model of a 911 GT product, colour us interested.
Timed to coincide with the launch of the Touring Package of the latest 992-generation 911 GT3, the 911 GT3 70 Years Porsche Australia Edition, to give the car its full and hugely cumbersome official moniker, commemorates the very first Porsche sales Down Under. Import conditions back then were tough, with a quota of fewer than two cars per year until 1954. That didn’t deter Melbourne entrepreneur Norman Hamilton, who imported a couple of 356s in 1951, making Australia Porsche’s first RHD export territory.
PORSCHE SEEMS INTENT ON DELIVERING THE GT3 TOURING WITH ANYTHING BUT A WATERED-DOWN DYNAMIC TREATMENT
As part of the deal, the two 356s, a Fish Silver Grey split screen Cabriolet and a Maroon Coupe, were both to be produced in July 1951, with Hamilton arriving back at the factory in August to collect them with a friend, Andrew Kennedy, who, incidentally, was a spy during and after WWII.
They then drove the cars across the Swiss and Italian Alps to Genoa, from where they were shipped to Melbourne, arriving in Australia by early October.
Then, on 1 November 1951, Hamilton introduced both cars to celebrities and motorsport identities at a function at the South Melbourne Town Hall, after which selected guests were driven for laps of nearby Albert Park Lake by Australian Motor Sports Club members, Ken Harper and Ken McConville. Another car arrived in 1952, another in ’53, five in ’54 and 15 in ‘55, but the tally grew to 84 in 1959. Porsche was on its way.
In a fitting tribute to that original Fish Silver Grey 356, Porsche has finished the 911 GT3 70 Years edition in a modern metallic interpretation of the hue.
Aside from the custom paint colour, the special edition also gets dark silver painted wheels, a badge on the B-pillar with the Australian flag and ‘70 Years Porsche Australia Edition’ silver lettering and a car cover in Braphite Blue with crayon piping.
Inside the car you’ll spot Graphite Blue leather-trimmed bucket seats with Madraskaro check inserts, dashboard and centre console trim in Fish Silver Grey metallic, and ‘70 years’ legends on the illuminated sill guards and storage compartment lid. In addition to some extra interior colour highlights in crayon, the special edition seems to have had most of the GT3 Touring’s options list emptied into it.
Porsche’s Chrono Package, Light Design pack, tailpipes and side window trims finished in black, a Bose surround sound system, the extended leather package, roof lining and sun visors in Race-Tex and so on. Small wonder that while the GT3 Touring retails at $369,700, the 70 Years Porsche Australia Edition carries a hefty $494,700 asking price.
Given that it’s based on a car that has only just been announced, perhaps we ought to cover off the 911 GT3 with Touring Package in a little more detail, then. It was always a little odd that the Touring version of the old 991 GT3 could only be purchased with the full-involvement manual gearshift, and demand for a dual-clutch PDK version was such that Porsche is now offering the Touring with a choice of either a six-speed manual or seven-speed dual-clutch transmission at no extra cost.
Or, if you prefer to look at it another way, the GT3 Touring is now PDK, but you get charged heavily for a manual version. This is becoming the vogue with some manufacturers, with BMW M adopting a similar philosophy.
The engine is the same 375kW flat-six as seen in the standard GT3 and the car weighs an identical 1418kg with manual ’box and 1435kg with the PDK transmission. As expected, the exterior aesthetic is a good deal more subtle than the GT3, doing away with the swanneck rear wing and replacing it with a more low-key automatically extending rear spoiler.
One of the more controversial aspects of the new GT3 Touring is that the front end is painted completely in the exterior colour, rather than featuring the contrast black plastic of the standard GT3. An advantage of the contrast colouration was to break up the visual bulk of the frontal styling into discrete elements, and the Touring may take a little getting used to for some as a result.
The suspension setup is also identical to the standard GT3, reviewers commenting on this model’s notably firm ride quality, with spring rates up by around 25 per cent on its predecessor. Could these have been eased off a little for the Touring, with its more mature buyer profile?
Porsche seems intent on delivering the GT3 Touring with anything but a watered-down dynamic treatment, instead concentrating on altering the aesthetic without compromising ultimate capability.
That’s evidenced by the fact that despite the special edition model for Australia featuring an extended leather treatment for the interior, it still retains the GT3’s carbonfibre reinforced plastic bonnet, lightweight glass windows, forged alloy wheels and lightweight sports exhaust system.
All Touring models get a lifter kit for the front axle, a rearview camera, Porsche Dynamic Lighting System, metallic paint, rear ParkAssist, a digital radio and automatically dimming mirrors. Inspired by the Touring Package offered on the 1973 911 Carrera RS, the classic interior finish and de-winged look was a huge hit with customers on the 991.2 version of the 911 for its ‘if you know, you know’ cool factor. Porsche’s GT boss Andreas Preuninger describing it as being “for the driver who isn’t hunting trackdays every weekend and who wants to more clandestinely drive a GT car”.
Should you want to do so, you’ll need to be pretty well connected in the Porsche firmament. Word is that securing a build slot for a GT3 Touring is hard enough, but landing a GT3 70 Years Porsche Australia Edition? If you’ve managed that, do tell us how.
ABOVE If you think the near-enough $500K sticker price is expensive now, wait until you see what it commands on the used market.
RIGHT Don’t let the lack of rear wing fool you into thinking the GT3 Touring has been softened at all.
RIGHT Porsche’s Exclusive Manufaktur department was employed to take care of the Australian-spec car.
BELOW RIGHT Those snobby Euros will have to make do with the standard GT3 Touring or bust.
MAIN No other market in the world has ever had its own special edition GT 911. Until now.