FRANKFURT MOTOR SHOW: Porsche unleashes 911 GT3 Touring Package

Is the new 911 GT3 Touring Package a cut-price 911 R or a gentler version of the spine-tingling 911 GT3?

Either way, for slightly bewildering reasons, it has been decided that Porsche’s hard-core 911 GT3 has a softer side, which it showed off at the Frankfurt motor show overnight.

Bereft of the stock GT3’s giant rear wing, the Touring Package is still at the blistering end of the 991.2 911 family yet it looks and feels a lot less imposing.

Porsche is pitching the Touring Package as the “purist’s 911” and they’re at least half right, because the car is one of the very last naturally-aspirated 911s car lovers can buy.

Parts of the 911 GT3 Touring Package’s philosophy smacks of the 911 R, which itself was a thinly-veiled 911 GT3 RS with a manual gearbox and no wing. Unlike the limited-edition 911 R, though, the GT3 Touring Package will occupy a permanent place in the Porsche range.

It will hit Australian showrooms in the first quarter of next year sitting at the stock GT3’s $326,800 (plus on-road costs) price tag, justifying it with a 0-100km/h sprint in 3.9 seconds.

Without the fixed rear wing (it runs the standard variable 911 Carrera wing instead), it will run to 316km/h, driven by 368kW of power and 460Nm of torque from its 4.0-litre flat six.

Porsche has scoured its archives and found the Touring Package name lurking in a 911 Carrera RS equipment package from 1973, even if it sounds like a Holden Commodore summer special from the 1980s.

The flat six still screams up to 9000rpm and is a variant of the motor from both the 911 RSR and the 911 GT3 Cup. In fact, it’s the most powerful naturally-aspirated six Porsche has ever built for the road.

Like the 911 R, it ditches the seven-speed manual and steers clear of the PDK transmission in favour of a close-ratio six-speed manual gearbox, which comes complete with an automatic throttle blipper for downshifting.

While the back end’s body package has been obviously calmed down from the GT3, the front end is largely unchanged, complete with the big-mouth air intake and the bonnet’s air outlet vent.

Its wheels retain the GT3’s rear-wheel steering, its centre-lock nuts, 245/35 ZR20 front tyres and 305/30 ZR20 rears, though its body remains 44mm wider at the wheel arches than the stock Carrera and 25mm lower.