The GT2 and GT3 versions of the 911 get all the hype nowadays, but we often forget that Porsche also built a GT1. Granted, the GT1 was an endurance-spec race car, but the German company also rolled out a street-legal version. Built in 1997 in just 20 units for homologation purposes, the 911 GT1 Strassenversion is the rarest modern vehicle built by the Stuttgart-based brand. And one of them came out of storage to go drag racing.
Well, this is something you definitely don't see every day. Most 911 GT1s usually spend their lives in heated garages and only come out of storage for photo shootings and events like the Goodwood Festival of Speed. But the owner of this blue-painted example decided that his GT1 deserves a bit of high-revving fun against other vehicles.
The footage below is actually a compilation showing the street-legal GT1 racing in a straight line and a pair of race-spec versions stretching their wheels at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The former was filmed at what appears to be an exotic car event and lineup up for straight-line racing against a couple of 911 models. You'll see it take on a 991-gen 911 GT3 RS at the 2:00-minute mark and race against a 993-gen model right after that.
More drag racing footage comes in at the five-minute mark when the GT1 tackles a Mercedes SLR McLaren. Finally, the road-legal race car races against the Porsche Carrera GT, the company's only V10-powered supercar.
The 911 GT1 proves to be fast enough for the old 993 and the Carrera GT but loses against the SLR and the 991-gen GT3, but none of these results matter. What matters here is that we get to hear an extremely rare Porsche rev its twin-turbo, flat-six engine to mind-boggling speeds.
If you're a fan of racing, the video also includes footage of the 1997 911 GT1 Evo and the Le Mans-winning, 1998 911 GT1-98 lapping the Goodwood circuit.
Getting back to the super-rare Strassenversion, it's believed that Porsche built about 25 of them. The first car was completed in 1996 and delivered to the German government for compliance testing. A second prototype was completed the same year. These cars are the only ones fitted with 993 headlamps.
Porsche built about 20 production models in 1997, this time around with 996-style headlamps. The Germans completed one final GT1 in 1998 to homologate the upgraded GT1-98 race car that went on to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans. All street-spec supercars were fitted with twin-turbo, 3.2-liter flat-six engines rated at 536 horsepower.
Ask Ciprian about cars and he'll reveal an obsession with classics and an annoyance with modern design cues. Read his articles and you'll understand why his ideal SUV is the 1969 Chevrolet K5 Blazer. Full profile
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