Newcomers: 2008 Porsche 911 GT2

It's not commonly known, but jet lag is cured by high-speed injections of German autobahn, a volksremedium we discovered long ago, at 180 mph in a Porsche 928 S4.

And it still works. Better than melatonin, mile-high liaisons, or other familiar folk remedies, there's no surer cure for jet lag than redlining a Porsche on an unrestricted autobahn-as we're about to reaffirm in the 2008 911 GT2, the best Porsche ever unleashed on an undeserving everyman. (Don't even think about owning one if you can't handle full opposite lock or payments on an MSRP of $191,700.)

Driving the 530-horsepower two-seater at 180 mph doesn't cure our jet lag as much as expel it violently from the car, but heavy rain means reaching the GT2's top speed of 205 mph is out of the question. Even with double the previous GT2's downforce from the new Le Mans racer-inspired body and rear wing, and excellent grip from the 19-inch Pirellis, the GT2 is too much car for the conditions. We also keep Porsche's spectacularly efficient stability-management systems, suitably modified for the GT2's higher limits, on full alert, leaving it to others to find out what happens when the driver is let loose in the most powerful, fastest, and costliest 911 ever.
That part of the test is conducted on an unused airport's runways by Walter Rohrl, former rally champ and current Porsche test driver, who, in perilously slippery conditions, dispensed a pure dose of GT2.

"This car was ninety-percent done before I ever drove it," shouts Rohrl over the roar of the biturbo's new titanium exhaust, one of the strategies to lighten up a platform that began life in the same gene pool as the "standard" all-wheel-drive 911 Turbo. "It was that good, but the final 10 percent can be learned only by driving."

And what did he learn?

"This is the best 911 ever," he pronounces, left hand and right foot executing a perfect power slide. "Race car, street car, the best."

Much of Rohrl's opinion, and the GT2's final suspension tuning, was formulated on the Nurburgring's Nordschleife, where he set a time of 7:32, faster than the previous GT2's 7:46, the fastest for any production-series 911 and comparable with the Carrera GT. "It has the power and stability of a good race car, but it drives more easily," he continues, shifting down through the six-speed manual gearbox as quick as a cardshark flashes aces.
Key to the GT2's fleeter feet is 300 pounds of shed weight via composite front bucket seats, elimination of the rear seats, an aluminum rear-axle subframe, the plastic rear lid and wing, a composite intake manifold and lightweight front aluminum brake hats, which, along with standard ceramic composite brake rotors, means less weight at the nose, a valuable ingredient of the GT2's steering-quick, precise, and the best we've ever felt in a 911.


"Turn-in is fantastic," Rohrl yells, his left hand gripping the wheel as lightly as if it were a lover's fingertips. "You always know just how much steering is needed," he says, illustrating the point with a bit of one-handed countersteer through a wet corner.

Though it's not homologated to race in any professional series, the GT2 is racetrack-ready. The chassis sits an inch lower than the 911 Carrera's and can be fine-tuned via adjustable anti-roll bars, spring plates, and wheel camber plates. A partial rollcage and fire system are optional, but not the full cage available in most other parts of the world. Most important to the talented few, the traction controls can be entirely disabled.

Rohrl pushes the proper buttons to do so, and, now using both hands to steer, purposely takes a bone-headed apex to show how easily the car transforms sideways movement into forward momentum. "No understeer," he shouts. "New front kinematics!" Rohrl also endorses the GT2's command of any road surface. "This is not a race car. You can go racing in it and have fun, but you can also drive it from Stuttgart to Berlin and not feel any pain."

It's also a great antidote to a muddled mind, snapping every sense to attention and replacing jet lag's sluggish distortion of time and space with an intensified perception of the here and now. Groovy.

[source: MotorTrend]

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