2025 Porsche 911 GT3 and GT3 Touring review

For most of the 911 GT3’s life, development work focused almost entirely on one area: making the thing go faster. That meant squeezing more and more power out of a given engine capacity – higher rev limits, lighter internals, free-flowing exhausts, more aggressive cams and so on – until eventually that capacity was increased by a couple of hundred cubic centimetres, then increased again, to wring out even more.

And it meant bolting on bigger wings and spoilers to add aerodynamic downforce, and reducing unsprung weight with optional carbon ceramic brakes and forged wheels, and widening tracks and tyres to ramp up mechanical grip. For two and a half decades since the first in 1999, the GT3 evolved like a predator over millennia, steadily becoming more and more optimised so it could fly along a road or around a track faster than ever.

But it seems there’s been a shift. If the product presentation at last week’s new 911 GT3 launch event near Valencia is any indication, it seems Porsche Motorsport’s engineers now spend more time with their noses buried deep inside the dense, dreary pages of governmental regulatory rulebooks, searching for a way through. Normally on these events we hear about what’s been done to increase engine output; this time, and for the first time, all of Porsche’s powertrain development work went into satisfying new tailpipe emissions legislation.