Porsche 911 GT2 RS: The King of the Ring

On September 11, 2017, a Porsche 911 GT2 RS lapped the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 6 minutes, 47.3 seconds — the fastest time ever recorded by a production car at that point, beating the Lamborghini Huracán Performante’s recent record by five full seconds. The GT2 RS did it on street-legal tyres, with rear-wheel drive only, and no active aerodynamic systems.

The “GT2” badge had always meant power without all-wheel-drive safety net: the 993 GT2 earned the nickname “The Widowmaker.” The 991.2 GT2 RS, launched in 2017, retained the rear-wheel drive and the 700-horsepower output, but added water injection to the 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six, PDK-only transmission, and enough electronic sophistication to make the record possible without making the car approachable by amateurs. It is still a monster with 700 horsepower going to the rear wheels, but it is a precision instrument. It doesn’t just want to kill you; it wants to kill lap records. And it did. In September 2017, it circled the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 6:47.3, smashing the production car record and beating the Lamborghini Huracán Performante by 5 seconds.

The GT2 Lineage: A Brief History of Madness

The “GT2” designation first appeared on the 993-generation 911 in 1995. Where the GT3 would always be about the naturallyaspirated, high-revving flat-six and driver engagement, the GT2 was always about brutal, unfiltered power. Every GT2 has been rear-wheel drive and, until the 991.2, built around the philosophy of giving the driver just enough tools to stay alive.

The 996 GT2 raised the power to 462 hp and added stability control, making it more approachable but no less spectacular. The 997 GT2 RS of 2010 pushed to 620 hp and set a Nürburgring record of its own. But the 991.2 GT2 RS represented a quantum leap—adding 80 horsepower over its predecessor while simultaneously making the car faster, safer, and more technically advanced than any GT2 before it.

The Engine: Water Injection Technology

The 3.8-liter flat-six is based on the 911 Turbo S engine but significantly modified.

Larger Turbos: The Variable Turbine Geometry (VTG) turbochargers are larger to push more air.
The Problem: Compressing that much air creates immense heat. Hot air is less dense, meaning less power. The intercoolers couldn’t keep up.
The Solution: Porsche engineers added a Water Injection System. Distilled water is sprayed directly onto the intercoolers when the intake temperature exceeds 50°C. This evaporates instantly, cooling the air by up to 20°C.
The Tank: There is a 5-liter tank of distilled water in the “frunk” (front trunk) that needs to be refilled every few laps on track or every few tanks of gas on the road. If it runs dry, the engine simply dials back the power to safe levels.

The result is 700 PS (690 hp) and 750 Nm (553 lb-ft) of torque. To put that in perspective, that is the same power figure as a Bugatti Veyron—from a six-cylinder engine in a car weighing just 1,470 kg. The specific power output of 184 hp per liter is a remarkable achievement for a street-legal, emissions-compliant engine that does not require premium race fuel.

Why Rear-Wheel Drive Only?

All-wheel drive would, theoretically, make the GT2 RS even faster around a circuit. Porsche knows this—the Turbo S uses AWD. But the GT2 RS retains rear-wheel drive as a deliberate philosophical statement. The GT2 has always been the driver’s weapon—harder to use, more demanding, and more rewarding when mastered. Adding AWD would blur its identity with the Turbo S. Instead, Porsche fitted massive Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires (265/35 ZR 21 front, 325/30 ZR 21 rear) to provide the mechanical grip necessary to put the power down on a track.

Weissach Package: The Obsessive Option

To get the most out of the car, most buyers opted for the Weissach Package ($31,000 option). This wasn’t just a cosmetic upgrade; it was a diet.

Weight Saving: It shaves 30 kg off the car.
Magnesium Wheels: The wheels are made of forged magnesium (saving 11.5 kg of unsprung mass).
Carbon Fiber: The roof, anti-roll bars, and even the paddle shifters are made of carbon fiber.
Titanium Cage: The roll cage is made of titanium instead of steel.
Visuals: It adds a massive “PORSCHE” script on the rear wing and exposed carbon stripes on the hood and roof.

The weight reduction is not merely academic. Reducing unsprung mass (the weight of the wheels and suspension components that must follow road undulations) has a disproportionate effect on chassis response. Every 1 kg removed from unsprung mass improves ride quality and steering precision more than removing 2-3 kg from the sprung mass (the body and chassis). The magnesium wheels alone deliver a tangible improvement in the car’s ability to respond to direction changes.

Aerodynamics and Downforce

The GT2 RS generates 416 kg of downforce at top speed. It looks like a race car because it essentially is one.

NACA Ducts: The bonnet features two massive NACA ducts to cool the brakes. This required completely redesigning the front trunk area—the spare wheel and storage space was sacrificed entirely to accommodate the brake cooling ducting.
Rear Wing: The rear wing is manually adjustable. In its most aggressive setting, it acts like an anchor in corners. The combined effect of the front splitter, the underbody, and the rear wing creates a car that becomes more stable the faster it travels—the opposite of most road cars, which generate lift.
Manthey Racing Kit: For those who found the standard car too slow (!), Manthey Racing (part-owned by Porsche) released an upgrade kit in 2021. This kit, featuring additional aerodynamic elements including a front splitter extension and a revised rear diffuser, allowed the car to lap the Nürburgring in 6:43.3, reclaiming the record from the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series.

Driving Experience

Driving the GT2 RS is a physical experience.

Acceleration: It hits 0-100 km/h in 2.8 seconds and 0-200 km/h in 8.3 seconds. The acceleration is violent and relentless. The unique character of the VTG turbos means there is virtually no lag period—the power arrives almost immediately from low revs and builds to a crescendo at the redline.
Sound: Unlike the muffled sound of most turbo cars, the GT2 RS uses a titanium exhaust system that barks, pops, and bangs like a rally car. On track, the intake roar through those NACA ducts provides a secondary soundtrack.
Handling: Despite having the engine in the rear, the front end grip is tenacious. The Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires are essentially slicks with grooves. The rear-wheel-steering system (borrowed from the 911 Turbo S) tightens the effective wheelbase at low speeds for agility and lengthens it at high speeds for stability.
PDK Only: Unlike previous GT2s, there is no manual option. The PDK shifts are so fast and violent in “Sport Plus” mode that they upset the chassis less than a human shift would. At this level of performance, the PDK is genuinely a safety net as well as a performance tool—the gear changes are measured in milliseconds, keeping the engine in its power band at all times.

Production Numbers and Value

Porsche built approximately 1,000 examples of the 991.2 GT2 RS. The majority were fitted with the Weissach Package, making the standard non-Weissach car the rarer of the two configurations. Original MSRP was around $293,000 in the United States.

Given the record-breaking performance, the significant technical innovation, and the limited production numbers, the GT2 RS has appreciated substantially from its sticker price. Clean, low-mileage examples with the Weissach Package now trade for considerably more than original MSRP on the collector market, and the car is widely viewed as the definitive expression of the 991-generation 911’s capabilities.

Legacy and Influence

The 911 GT2 RS is the ultimate expression of the internal combustion 911 in its traditional rear-wheel-drive, rear-engine format. It proved that a rear-engine car could defeat mid-engine exotics costing three times as much. The Nürburgring record it set in 2017 remained unbroken by any production car for several years.

More broadly, the GT2 RS’s water injection technology demonstrated that novel engineering solutions could extract performance gains from existing engine architectures that more conventional development paths could not achieve. This philosophy—applying targeted, high-technology solutions to specific engineering challenges rather than simply adding displacement or a bigger turbo—is quintessentially Porsche. It is the same thinking that produced the PSK all-wheel-drive system in the 959 and the 800-volt electrical architecture in the Taycan.

The GT2 RS is the alpha predator of the Porsche food chain—a car that demands and rewards commitment in equal measure.