Porsche Carrera GT 2004 Review

It stands low, wide, red and rare. All carbon fibre, Kevlar and unobtanium -- a screaming 450kW V10 engine in the middle and a million-buck price tag on its nose.

The only one in the Southern Hemisphere with an exhausting multi-dealership and Sydney Motor Show display schedule ahead of it and instant shame and mortification awaiting the first to scratch it.

Then there's Alex Davison in the passenger seat, the new 'wunderkind' of the Australian Carrera Cup, who has regularly seen off seven-time Bathurst winner Jim Richards since his local Porsche race debut this season.

He's personable, confident and direct as many 24 year-old top sportspeople are: "Just take it easy at first," he warns. "It's got so much torque you could loop it in pit lane!" It would make a great story, but not the one I had in mind.

Drop inside through the refreshingly conventional forward-hinged doors and it's a deceptively familiar place. The sill is wide, but once bridged, the racing bucket seats borrowed from the GT2 but re-cast in carbon fibre are comfortable and hip-hugging.

Ahead, the bunched five-dial instrument cluster is straight from the Cayenne/911/Boxster design school until you read the fine print; the central rev counter red-lined at 8300rpm and reading to 10,000; the half-dial speedometer running out of room at 380km/h.

Sprouting from the deep centre console, the gearstick with its slightly incongruous round wooden knob seems rather tall, but there are none of the inconveniences or wacky design ideas that identify most supercars. It's only when you glance around that you realise you're marooned in a very expensive carbon fibre cocoon unlike any other production Porsche - even the very limited-build late-'90s GT1.

Turn the ignition key in its traditional Porsche dashboard position and a muted explosion erupts. Unlike the McLaren F1 or Lamborghini Murcielago's bellowing V12 engines, the Carrera GT's 40-valve 68-degree V10 whirrs to life with relative calm and idles immediately with a turbine like refinement.

It mightn't have the presence of a Ferrari engine bay, but this light alloy engine weighing just 214kg is still a wonderful thing to behold beneath the twin, sculptured mesh cam covers in the rear deck lid, cradled by its carbon fibre 'yoke'.

The racing-derived pushrod suspension lies proudly naked and in full view to each side of the specially-developed transverse-mounted six-speed gearbox.

The late Porsche endurance champion Bob Wollek held high hopes for this engine. In its original 5.5-litre, 507kW at 10,000rpm, racing form, it seemed destined to give Wollek a long overdue victory at Le Mans in 2000 after 29 attempts and four second places.

He'd personally tested and helped develop Porsche's new Le Mans package and was bubbling with enthusiasm at the Adelaide Le Mans race in late-'99 until Porsche boss Wendelin Wiedeking scrapped the project to concentrate on getting the new Cayenne to market.

Wollek was shattered and then just months later he was killed riding his pushbike at Sebring. But in its 5.7-litre road guise, something of this great Alsatian driver and his understated way of performing brilliantly lives on in the engine.

"Just ease it away from rest," Porsche's National Technical Trainer, Paul Watson advises. "Short shift and let the torque (590Nm) do the work."

It's good advice. With its tiny 192mm flywheel, titanium conrods and a thin-webbed crank, the V10 has low rotational masses and revs with the eagerness of a pure racing engine.

To complicate matters, the 169mm diameter ceramic composite clutch is not really designed to be slipped. So if you're tardy between changes in the six-speed close ratio box, the revs plummet and incoming changes are embarrassingly jerky. Even twiddling your toes can send the revs soaring, so a degree of discipline is necessary.

On the positive side, the standard Porsche Stability Management system stops the rear wheels locking under engine compression. So you don't leave big black lines on up-shifts if you dump the clutch with too few revs!

I 'walk' the Carrera GT out of pit lane, treating the floor-hinged accelerator like a fresh egg and engaging the clutch at little above idle. Ease in the power, into second early, then third, then fourth with the engine note rising to a muted scream, still well-short of its red line.

Circuit conditions are not ideal. Heavy overnight rain has made the green bits a virtual paddy field, while the grey bits in the middle are tinged with rainbow colours following a major oil spill by a Carrera Cup competitor during an abortive earlier practice session. It hadn't stopped Alex wringing the neck of the Carrera GT earlier, when he lit up the fat 335/30-ZR20 rear Michelins regularly in fourth and fifth gears while checking the drying track out for grip.

Now sitting alongside him with the V10 howling gleefully at full song, we see an indicated 280km/h on Gardner Straight - V8 Supercar speed - just before the six-piston callipers are clamped onto the massive 380mm Ceramic Composite brakes.

It makes me wonder what this missile could manage in his hands on racing -- instead of road -- rubber on a dry surface. Porsche claims 0-100km/h in 3.9 seconds, 0-230km/h in under 10secs and a top speed of 330km/h and I know from past experience their factory figures are conservative.

There are some things you think 'I can do that' and some you know 'I can't'. Driving the Carrera GT with that much gusto at Phillip Island on this wintry spring day was one of the latter. My mission was to survive with pride and dignity intact rather than dazzle Davison with my driving talent.

The first lap was spent finessing the controls: squeezing the brakes hard, then harder; easing in the power and feeling every granule in the road surface through those super-light forged 19-inch magnesium wheels up front, with 265/35 ZR19 liquorice straps which pass for rubber.

By the second lap it's getting easier. Confidence is up and with it, revs and speed rising in each gear and braking distances coming down. It was probably no coincidence that Davison motioned me into the pit lane entry. It was time for lunch and he was hungry!

After satisfying the inner man, there was an opportunity to appraise the Carrera GT in a new light of familiarity.

It's a pretty car from most angles except around the rear, where the twin built-in roll bars battle with the Kevlar rear wing for recognition. Plentiful styling cues from Porsche production models aside, the unkind might suggest it looks like a Boxster sat on by an elephant.

But the most impressive thing, which it shares with just about every other production Porsche except the homologation special GT1, is it can operate as a road car when required. Porsches are all about 'available' performance and with the exception of its marginal ground clearance, which rules out most car parks and driveways, there's little doubt the Porsche flagship can live in the real world.

It's time to drive again, but this time I feel that the Carrera GT and I are bonding. Alex senses this and looks understandably nervous.

Now it feels almost normal from the outset and even though we agree to tackle the two slowest corners on the circuit in third instead of second gear, the fat rear Michelins break traction with ease and I have a brief opposite lock experience exiting MG Corner that is easily managed.

With a smooth, yet still nowhere near maximum attack on Gardner Straight, the speedo reads an easy 235km/h before braking very early for Turn 1 and powering through gently in fifth. The next lap comes and goes far too quickly and I'm seriously disappointed to see the 'in' sign before we've completed two flying laps. I'm sure we could have got on on even better terms, given more quality time.

"For a car with such amazing performance, they've done a great job making it so driveable," enthuses Alex. "But the chassis is so stiff that it really needs race tyres to deliver its best on the circuit."

Porsche plans to build 1500 Carrera GTs and more than 1300 of these are already spoken for, including one to an Australian owner who intends to keep it garaged in Europe. Makes sense with unlimited master blaster roads like Germany's Autobahn network on your doorstep.

But would I really want one if the gravy train stopped at my station? I looked across at the 'ordinary' ($241,500) 911 GT3 and its upmarket lighter GT3 RS ($288,000) mate in pit lane, in which I had enjoyed some earlier laps re-learning the circuit.

They had been fun - available, achievable and thoroughly enjoyable. But could I ever get on those close terms with the Carrera GT? You'd need wide open roads and regular track days to keep on the pace and there would be few times that you could, or would want to, drive it back home through traffic.

I've driven exotic Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches and walked away from all of them after the drive frustrated, very happy to live with something I can enjoy to the full.

Like Bob Wollek's Le Mans dream, some things are just not meant to be. For me, the Carrera GT - not too sadly - is one of them.