Respiration strategies up in the thin air of the supercar class
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| Porsche 911 GT3 RS 2016 |
The McLaren’s face resembles a smiling shark, while the 911 has the blank stare of an android as it twists your head off. Massive tires stuff the Porsche’s wheelwells to bursting, and its mesh screens are moved forward to be nearly flush with the front bumper. Why? Because on a track, crud collects in them otherwise, as it did in the McLaren’s deep-set nostrils. The McLaren is theatrical and dramatic, while the Porsche just gets the business done.
The 911 may be clinical, but oh, what an engine! This flattie is one pissed-off pancake. If your day isn’t complete without an aural visit to the forests of Spa, then allow us to introduce you to your next car. At 5000 rpm, where you’ll be upshifting most days to prevent being arrested, the sound is mellifluous, but the band is just warming up. At 7000, the harmonics are so hot as to be incandescent. A finer flamenco you will never hear in a modern car, especially from this, a lowly half-12.
We said the Porsche builds speed quicker, but that’s only true in the first hundred or so feet. Once the McLaren comes up to full bluster, it begins to pull away. The top speed on Buttonwillow’s back straight belongs to the 570S, which hit 146.5 mph to the 911’s 142.9. And that’s off a 3.6-mph deficit through the previous corner as the McLaren pilot cautiously manhandled the nervous car. No doubt, aero is a factor, both at speed and in general cornering superiority as the GT3 RS’s big wing bites the wind hard. Above 100 mph, the 911’s steering gets noticeably heavier, as if a giant is sitting on the hood. With less horsepower, it beat the McLaren around Buttonwillow by 1.6 seconds.
Going fast is not necessarily joyous; a Southwest Airlines 737 kicks both of these cars to the curb. It all depends on how insulated you are from the environment and the working parts. There’s an intimacy with the machinery in the 911 that is slightly blunted in the McLaren because of its turbos and the disconnect, however minimized, they create between inputs and outcomes. You’ll win drag races in the McLaren, but is speed everything, or is it the total experience that matters? The GT3 RS makes a convincing case for the latter.
Don’t get us wrong; the McLaren 570S is all ate up with dazzling personality. But in this confrontation, the Porsche 911 GT3 RS reminds us of sunsets over Sebring and 935s in the rainy night and why we love engines. When it goes to pasture, as it surely must given that the bulk of the 911 line is now turbocharged, we will mourn an era that has ended. Source by caranddriver.com
Performance Data and Complete Specs
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| image by caranddriver.com |
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