• The GT2, which has turbocharged Porsche power, is basically a tougher version of the 911 Turbo.
• Just 300 GT2s were delivered to the US in the 996 era, and with very low mileage, this example represents excellent potential.
• This Bring a Trailer auction ends on January 29th.
The GT2 is a car with a certain reputation – rare, raw, with a bloodline that stretches back to the original “Widowmaker” 930 Turbo. Now, with this auction on Bring a Trailer, is your chance to get a taste of one of the most powerful 911s Porsche has ever built.
To the uninitiated, this is just another silver 911, and judging by the elongated headlights, not even one of the truly desirable ones. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll see yellow calipers that indicate carbon ceramic brakes, a unique rear wing and the subtle GT2 script out back. This is no mere pedestrian 911; here hides a monster.
While the GT3 was more of a track star destined for mid-corner battles with the likes of the Corvette Z06, the GT2 was basically an untamed 911 Turbo: lighter, more powerful and stripped of driver aids like electronic stability control. If the GT3 was a scalpel, the GT2 was a mud lake, and if you weren’t careful, you might send a limb or two to Tucumcari. Like the 930 of yesteryear, the GT2 doesn’t suffer fools.
Out back, the GT2 received the same race-derived 3.6-liter flat-six as the Turbo of its day, but with larger turbochargers, more cooling and reprogrammed software. Power is up nearly 15 percent to 474 horsepower, and the removal of the all-wheel drive helped shed about 220 pounds. Meaty carbon ceramic brakes were standard, certainly useful when approaching the GT2’s stated top speed of 196 mph.
When we drove the car in Germany in 2001, we noted that the GT2 “requires unwavering concentration as the speedometer needle turns to the upper end of its scale … an eye-opening drive – but seriously addictive nonetheless. Along with the GT2 ‘s incessant ‘Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,’ there’s an implicit disclaimer line, a serious-drivers-only message that says something like, ‘Look, skimp, I’m not your mother. You are here on your own.’
This example offered for auction is a 2003 US market car, and it is near flawless, with all relevant documentation present. With three days to go, bidding stands at $155,000, although that figure is likely to rise as the end nears.
This one has just 4000 miles on the odometer and is finished in silver with a black interior. 996-era interiors generally don’t hold up well over the years, but this car has all kinds of well-maintained leather trim inside, and it comes across as efficient and business-like—just what you want in a Porsche.
While this GT2 could be a blue-chip investment material, if you take this GT2 home, please drive it. It won’t make much of a difference if it has 4000 miles or 6000 miles on the clock, and the current owner recently changed most of the engine’s consumables, including a new set of spark plugs. The lucky buyer owes it to themselves to get at least one sweaty joel of turbocharged Porsche adrenaline behind the wheel of this car.
