Porsche 911R: The Modern Purist Porsche
By Mike Garcia
The gauge cluster harkens to the 993 interior. The bucket seats and doors do not have alcantara, but a sport cloth and leather. My favorite understated feature of the 911R are the nylon door handles, which were placed to reduce weight compared to the plastic or aluminum door handles that are typically used.
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The 911R was engineered to be more agile than the GT3, and Andres (from the EVO video earlier), stated it had a similar agility to the Cayman GT4. Compensating for the heavy, rear bias, that is quite a feat.
The 911R comes with a single mass flywheel, six-speed transmission. It has the 4.0 liter flat-six from the GT3 RS-4.0. The tires have a smaller contact patch to create a greater sense of weight transfer and agility. The materials used to make the 911R, make it lighter than its’ GT3 counterpart. It has the cleanest 911 shape of the entire model line.
If there is one thing left that a purist can dispute, it is the fact that the rear-wheel-steering was retained. Something tells me that when Porsche wanted to create a purist 911, the idea of pure agility and exaggerated responses came to mind. The rear-wheel-steering achieves that goal, and was calibrated specifically to the 911R for the driving experience.
Unfortunately, only 991 models will be made. This is easily a future classic.