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Porsche 911 GT3 Touring Is a "Secret Weapon," a Track Car in Sheep's Clothing

If you care even the slightest about cars, you can't help but love the Porsche 911 GT3, even if only from a distance. A lot of people wouldn't be caught dead in something so flashy, so in-your-face as the big-winged 911, but rear-mounted mobile landing strip aside, there's no getting away from the fact that the GT3 is just a technological marvel.
Rory Reid on the Porsche 911 GT3 Touring 8 photos
Photo: AutoTrader / YouTube screenshot
Porsche 911 GT3 Touring by Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur on social mediaPorsche 911 GT3 Touring by Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur on social mediaPorsche 911 GT3 Touring by Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur on social mediaPorsche 911 GT3 Touring by Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur on social mediaPorsche 911 GT3 Touring by Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur on social mediaPorsche 911 GT3 Touring by Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur on social mediaPorsche 911 GT3 Touring by Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur on social media
Always on the lookout to increase sales, Porsche realized not everyone who would be interested in the GT3 is a boy-racer (or a proper racer) who can match the model's visuals with their own attitude, so the Germans came up with the Touring Package - a 911 GT3 sans the wing.

Considering there is no price difference between the standard and the Touring GT3, it may feel a little backward to pay the same amount of money for less car. I mean, if there's any food left in the plate at the restaurant that you paid for, you can take it home. They could have done the same with the wing, right? A few bolts and some zip ties and you could mount it yourself later on when you needed it. Or when you reached the dreaded mid-life crisis.

Well, no. Unsurprisingly, Porsche thought about everything and the GT3 Touring comes with its own wing, even if at times it's pretty hard to see it. That's because it's of the retractable sort, camouflaging itself almost seemingly into the car's body shape when not in use, and popping up to provide the much-needed downforce when the situation requires it.

With 503 hp (510 PS) coming from the 4.0-liter naturally aspirated flat-six very high up the rev range - that goes all the way to 9,000 rpm -, the situation will require it quite often. Just because it looks much more mundane, it doesn't mean the Touring is any less of a track fiend than the regular version. After all, everything else about the car is identical.

Some people might frown at the sight of the PDK instead of the good-old six-speed manual but consider this: the Touring Package is meant to make the GT3 easier to live with on a day-to-day basis, which involves trudging through the busy urban traffic. Doesn't an automatic transmission make more sense in that scenario? Do you really want to keep using your left foot over and over again, or would you prefer to rest it and leave the right one to skip from one pedal to another? And then, when you do hit the track or a nice open road, you put the car in the appropriate mode (Sport or Track) and enjoy some of the quickest shifts you'll find in the industry. Win-win.

Finally, there's one more aspect to consider when deciding between the Touring and the non-Touring GT3. If acceleration is more important to you than corner grip, then the smaller, retractable wing of the Touring Package could make more sense since it's bound to have less drag than the regular model's massive rear spoiler.

If you're still in doubt over which one is your favorite, why don't you give the clip below a try and see if Rory Reid has anything else to say about the Porsche 911 GT3 Touring?

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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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