Porsche announced the 911 GT3 Touring Package a few months ago. Since that day, the wingless GT3 has compelled as many double takes as when comic book superheroes discover their supervillain enemy has a gentle near-twin brother, and that brother wants to help the heroes destroy his evil kin. We've overstated the scenario — slightly — but in this case the superheroes are Porschephiles who wanted to buy a 911 R, the supervillain represents the posse of speculators reselling the 911 R for more than $1 million, and the kind doppelganger is the 911 GT3 T, here to vanquish those resale hijackers. And Porsche 911 honcho August Achleitner admitted all of that — in different words, of course — to Road & Track.
Achleitner confessed to R&T that after watching " the crazy reaction concerning used car prices," the company position was, "We don't like that." Hence the rollout of a 911 R minus a few of the really special bits as a glorious, 500-horsepower, 9,000-rpm stone knocking down two birds: pleasing a legion of Porsche buyers, while disappointing a much smaller legion of Porsche speculators. Said Achleitner, "If [the GT3 Touring Package] helps keep the prices a little bit lower for the average customer of our cars, it's better. Of course, there are some specific customers who are a little bit disappointed, but it's ok, we can live with this."
Porsche made 991 units of the 911 R, priced at $185,950. Within weeks, secondhand prices had jumped to seven figures, and there was no reason to think they'd come down. One supercar financing concern said it believed 911 R resale values set a record for new cars when compared to the car's original value. A Porsche exec in Australia said, "We are not about building cars so people can use them as nuggets of gold and put them quickly on the market and make a profit from them." Another measure of the madness? In 2005 Bonhams auctioned an original 1967 911 R that the current R pays homage to, with a pre-auction estimate of $387,000 to $470,000. Porsche made only 23 of those original models. Yet, even accounting for inflation in classic Porsche values since 2008, you're not far above the more fantastical 911 R prices.
The 911 R still holds a couple of aces, though — the first being its limited production number. The R also has a magnesium roof, a carbon fiber hood and fenders, and interior options unavailable on the GT3 Touring. The GT3 Touring, on the other hand, gets an updated version of the R's 4.0-liter flat-six, the same horsepower as the R but 500 more usable revs before tapping out, and the same $144,650 MRP as the current GT3. And Achleitner's remark about keeping prices "lower" doesn't mean deflating them: As of writing, the DuPont Registry lists eleven 911 R's for sale, starting at $399,990 and topping out at $449.991.
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Achleitner confessed to R&T that after watching " the crazy reaction concerning used car prices," the company position was, "We don't like that." Hence the rollout of a 911 R minus a few of the really special bits as a glorious, 500-horsepower, 9,000-rpm stone knocking down two birds: pleasing a legion of Porsche buyers, while disappointing a much smaller legion of Porsche speculators. Said Achleitner, "If [the GT3 Touring Package] helps keep the prices a little bit lower for the average customer of our cars, it's better. Of course, there are some specific customers who are a little bit disappointed, but it's ok, we can live with this."
Porsche made 991 units of the 911 R, priced at $185,950. Within weeks, secondhand prices had jumped to seven figures, and there was no reason to think they'd come down. One supercar financing concern said it believed 911 R resale values set a record for new cars when compared to the car's original value. A Porsche exec in Australia said, "We are not about building cars so people can use them as nuggets of gold and put them quickly on the market and make a profit from them." Another measure of the madness? In 2005 Bonhams auctioned an original 1967 911 R that the current R pays homage to, with a pre-auction estimate of $387,000 to $470,000. Porsche made only 23 of those original models. Yet, even accounting for inflation in classic Porsche values since 2008, you're not far above the more fantastical 911 R prices.
The 911 R still holds a couple of aces, though — the first being its limited production number. The R also has a magnesium roof, a carbon fiber hood and fenders, and interior options unavailable on the GT3 Touring. The GT3 Touring, on the other hand, gets an updated version of the R's 4.0-liter flat-six, the same horsepower as the R but 500 more usable revs before tapping out, and the same $144,650 MRP as the current GT3. And Achleitner's remark about keeping prices "lower" doesn't mean deflating them: As of writing, the DuPont Registry lists eleven 911 R's for sale, starting at $399,990 and topping out at $449.991.
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Featured Gallery 2018 Porsche 911 GT3 Touring Package: Frankfurt 2017
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