OPINION: You need to drive a Porsche to get the hype

Do I have a personal preference for some other cars? Sure. I’m a closeted American with designs on owning a Corvette Z06. But Porsches tend to have, well, a certain rightness about them that’s impossible to ignore.

The problem is, everyone who drives one tends to say as much, or something similar and that causes many car enthusiasts, who perhaps hadn’t had the opportunity to experience one, to be put off by the hype.

I was. I wanted to be able to shout from the rooftops that I didn’t get what all the fuss was about. But then I drove a few. Very quickly all became clear and all dissonant compulsions dissolved away, like droplets slipping off a Rain X’d windscreen.

There are two from my experience that spring to mind as truly encompassing this ‘once you drive it, you get it’ thing. The former you might not expect and the latter is perhaps a bit obvious and a bit of a cliché. But they span the class spectrum that I described above as ‘Porsche’s proper sportscars’.

The first is the 991 911 Carrera T. This is the billy boggo, back-to-basics analogue 991, that happens to also be the rarest. It pairs the slim body, least-powerful engine and as little active chassis trickery as possible, with a manual gearbox, a limited-slip diff and some lightweight frippery, which in the case of the yellow press car, included ceramic brakes. 

The second is the latest all-singing, all-dancing 992 911 GT3 RS, which clothes the widest-possible body in insane GTE-baiting active aero, that also features a carbon-fibre roll cage and carbon seats, an eight-way adjustable chassis, Cup 2 R tyres, magnetic paddles for the PDK transmission and of course, the screaming 9,000rpm flat-six. 

They’re all but antithetical in their execution but the conclusion I came to after my first proper drive in both, that was only cemented in both instances the more the miles tumbled out the back, was the same: I get it. And I would challenge anyone who loves their cars, and loves their driving, not to also.

In the 991, from the steering, to the gearshift, to the movement of the body, everything was bob-on in terms of weighting and ratios and the sensation of mass. It is a device entirely and totally fit for purpose; that of making driving a joy rather than a job.

Yet still I approached the new GT3 RS – freshly glazed by adoring critics – with belligerent cynicism. The aero stuff looked stupid and made it look ugly, while the engine only featured a marginal power upgrade over the ‘normal’ GT3. I wanted to find that the chassis was too aggressive for the road and that the steering wheel, with more knobs than an air fryer, was a total gimmick.

But then I drove it and in an instant I was consumed with amazement not only at the downforce, and the screaming flat-six, but by the astonishing versatility of the adaptive chassis.

And then the initial high cleared and made way for sheer disbelief, that in spite of all the technical frippery and performance addenda, that ‘just so’ feeling shone through resolutely free of convolution. It is near-inimitable and unmistakable, in all from the most basic to the most sophisticated of Porsche’s sportscars.

To call your first proper drive in one a religious experience would be incredibly corny. But I’ll say again, any sceptic that also calls themselves a lover of driving that doesn’t find their first proper drive in one at least a bit epiphanic, isn’t my kind of driver. 

Drive before you judge… and no, I shouldn’t have to tell you that. The militant contrarian that I am still wants the big, dumb, worse Corvette, though.

GT3 RS images by Joe Harding