TI: 992 Carrera T, GTS, GT3 Touring comparison

[JWM]

Sorry if this can’t be accessed without a subscription or trial but it’s a great read. I’m becoming a bit of a fan of their articles actually. 

Link here, but if you can’t access it the conclusion was …

edit: see video in post from @Carrera28 below (must have come out not long after I first posted this!)

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There’s one small surprise here, one very big surprise and one that’s no surprise at all. The last of these is the GT3. It’s a brilliant car, fabulously engineered by the best in the business. It brings a greater sense of occasion and a different dimension of dynamic response to the right road. It has a better engine, gearbox and chassis than the other two and just ask yourself how surprised you’d be now were that not the case. But you have to be on the right road, which means it’s a recreation, probably a third, fourth or fifth car. It is no longer a daily driver. The other two are.

The smaller surprise is the GTS, partly because it’s so damn rapid but also because it asks questions of its chassis which, for rather different reasons, never present themselves in the other two. It feels by far the most over-engined of the trio and while I enjoyed rising to the challenge it presents, it is neither as relaxing to drive as the T, nor so thrilling as the GT3.

So the big surprise is the T, and there’s an important point to make here. We spent the entire day in the mountains, the cars moving together often as a trio, sometimes in pairs. Up and down we went, swapping drivers regularly until one essential truth could no longer be denied.

On this, one of the great driving roads, not once was the T dropped by the others, nor did it once hold them up. In the real world, where there are margins to be left and other road users to consider and respect, it is just as fast as the GTS or GT3. Because above a certain level the speed at which such a road can be safely negotiated is not determined by power or torque, but common sense and geography.

There’s something else too. I have been lucky to have been around 911s all my conscious life, starting as a toddler in my dad’s 1968 2-litre 911S. I’ve tested them, raced them, and owned them. I don’t know much but I think I know what a 911 is, or at least what it should be.

And when I think of what that is, it’s the Carrera T. Simple, straightforward, sublime. A car without pretence, a car without ostentation; a car sufficiently civilised and practical to use for every purpose, but one whose very presence outside your house is enough to bring joy to a Monday morning ahead of the most difficult of working weeks. At least to me, these are the qualities of the truly great 911, and you need neither GTS nor GT3 to find them, for they’re all right there in the T. It wins.

[DJM]

Interesting.  My 992 GTS was a fabulous car but yes road driving limits what is possible.  I have no doubt a T would be just as quick in real world driving.  In fact I’ve driven as hard as I dare on the road and had much cheaper lower powered stuff go just as quick through the hills.

For me, the GTS is a bit of a goldilocks package. Just felt right somehow.  The T seems to be the poor cousin, a bit of a stripper special.  But from that article, it’s massively underrated.  I reckon you could pickup a 991.2 T for low 200s now which seems good buying relative to other options.

For those that prefer a 991.1 GTS because it’s NA, forget it, for all intents and purposes the 3.0TT is lag free, sounds fantastic and the torque wallop is addictive.  And my stock GTS was comfortably faster than my old modified 996 GT2 🤷‍♂️

[Carrera28]