Although the Porsche 964 was initially a success, it quickly became clear that Porsche had not gone far enough in its development. The new CEO Wiedeking not only brought a breath of fresh air into the production processes, but the 964 successor 993 was also developed and launched on the market under great pressure.
An RS variant of this was also quickly created, but the Porsche developers wanted to go one step further and so the GT2 was born. In principle, this was a weight-minimized 993 Turbo without all-wheel drive, but with wide cheeks and wings. It was clear from the outset that the GT2 was being developed in order to have a say in the GT2 racing category (classified between GT1 and GT3), because at that time it seemed important for Porsche to be present in GT racing, as this opened up many opportunities in terms of marketing.
This resulted in three versions of the GT2, the road version, the club sport version and the GT2R racing version. A total of 194 road-going GT2s (including Clubsport) and 78 GT2Rs in various versions were built. The original estimate was around 150 cars in total, a figure that was significantly exceeded between 1994 and 1998.
796 pages for 272 cars
Christoph F. Mäder and Jan Koum have dedicated not one, but two books to this rare Porsche sports car. The two volumes, which come in a joint slipcase, comprise a total of 796 pages, almost three pages for each car built.
The first volume describes the prehistory, development, marketing/sales, test reports and equipment variants/colors of the road version on 380 pages, which also include a complete overview of all cars built in detail.
With the help of many internal Porsche documents, you can understand development decisions, study the differences to other Porsche models and delve into the smallest technical detail. Impressive!
The second volume is then dedicated to the racing versions. Here, too, the environment is first described and then the differences that set the racing car apart from the road car are explained. Even the modifications made by private teams are documented in detail. Over 200 pages of the 416-page second volume take you through the racing seasons and results. The 78 GT2R versions are also documented individually.
Despite the meticulousness of the authors, there are of course still gaps in the GT2 database. Accordingly, the authors also ask owners or former owners of GT2 to fill in these gaps, which would then benefit a second edition.
Not just for GT2 owners and for a good cause
The GT2 period only lasted around four years and the cars are perhaps less popular than other Porsche legends such as the 904, 917 or 959. So is the two-volume set only aimed at owners of GT2 cars, for whom the book definitely belongs in the library?
There are several reasons why even Porsche and sports car enthusiasts should be interested in the GT2 books. Firstly, the GT2 belongs to the 993 period, which was enormously important for Porsche; secondly, the development of the GT2 tells you what made Porsche tick in the nineties; and thirdly, the GT2 also played an important role in racing, raced several times at Le Mans, won the ADAC GT Championship and, with its classic sports car architecture, was an important splash of color in the sports car and GT races of the nineties.
At EUR 399, the two-volume work is not even outrageously expensive, especially as the profits from the sale are to benefit the victims of the flood disaster in Germany in 2021.
You can also really delve into this work, as it is very exciting to find out, for example, in which colors the GT2 road variant was delivered and how often, and where the cars ultimately went. You learn about the special codes M004, M002, M003 and M005, smile at the fact that even racing cars had a clock in the cockpit and marvel a little (from today's perspective) at the fact that people were so proud of the 430 hp (yes, a Mercedes A-Class in the AMG A45S trim with a displacement of two liters almost achieves that today).
It is also interesting to see what modifications were made to give the racing version a better chance against the McLaren F1, Dodge Viper and the like. And of course it is also interesting to see that the road version was sold for DM 268,000 (the racing version cost DM 334,000), an amount that would be equivalent to around EUR 135,000 today and far outstrips the cars traded at auction.
Incidentally, the foreword was written by Walter Röhrl, who was closely involved in the development of the GT2 and covered many test kilometers with prototypes and pre-production examples. His statements and those of other interviewees are the icing on the cake, so to speak, of this comprehensive GT2 two-volume set.
Bibliographical details
- Title: 911 GT2
- Authors: Christoph F. Mäder, Jan Koum
- Language: English
- Publisher: RPM Books
- Edition: 1st edition November 2021 (limited to 993 copies)
- Format: Hardcover, two volumes, 25.7 x 29.9 cm, in slipcase
- Scope: 380 + 416 (796) pages, over 1000 photos and illustrations
- ISBN: 978-3-9823486-1-2
- Price: EUR 399.00
- Buy/order: Online on the RPM Books website
