PORSCHE 911 S/T

Stuttgart rolls out a very special 911 as a birthday present to itself

- MATT PRIOR

TESTED 19.9.23, LAMEZIA, ITALY ON SALE NOW

You can't accuse Porsche of under-promising with the 911 S/T. Andreas Preuninger, who runs Porsche's GT division, tells us it is "one of the greatest 911s of all time, if not the greatest" and "the most entertaining". And he says Walter Röhrl, Porsche's brand ambassador (and two-time world rally champion), calls it "the best street-legal car I've ever driven".

Which, when even just the recent back catalogue has the GT3 RS 4.0 and 911 R in it, is no minor boast.

The S/T is a special-edition 911 limited to 1963 units (it's the model line's 60th anniversary), about 10% of which will come to the UK, each priced at £231,600. It's based on the GT3 Touring, the marginally more laid-back, road-friendlier version of the GT3 that is Autocar's reigning - and two-time - Britain's Best Driver's Car champion. But while the S/T is "a GT product", according to Preuninger, it is unequivocally "not a track car". The evidence? "The Nürburgring lap time I don't care about," he says. "I don't know it. We haven't tested it."

Instead, the S/T is meant to be different from all previous 911 GT cars. "We wanted to make the ultimate driver's car," says Preuninger, "and being the lightest 992[-generation 911] was the main development goal."

There are, then, carbonfibre door skins, front wings, 'froot' lid and roof. Wheels are magnesium and the interior features no rear seats.

Weight has been shed elsewhere too, as a by-product of other goals. The 4.0-litre flat-six naturally aspirated engine comes from Porsche's 911 GT3 RS, where it makes 518bhp. But because the team wanted it to have more of a 'zing' factor, there is a much lighter clutch for the six-speed manual gearbox, and a single- rather than dual-mass flywheel.