The champagne corks must have flown high over Stuttgart the day they thought of the original Porsche 911 Carrera GTS. What it needed was a means of bringing the 996/997 series of cars – the first of the water-cooled 911s – into a gentle landing before an all-new breed of 911, complete with a longer wheelbase and electric steering, took over.
Of course there’d been all manner of low volume specials like the GT2 RS, GT3 RS 4.0, Speedster and Sport Classic to keep the name in the headlines, but what Porsche really wanted was a low cost (to Porsche) way of also keeping the cars flowing out of the showrooms. So it dredged up a nameplate first used by the 904 GTS racer in the 1960s and not since the 928 GTS of the 1990s, flipped over the lid of the parts bin and went for a rummage.
Inside it found a box marked ‘GT3’ and decided to leave that well alone – no need for fancypants motorsports bits here. Instead the GTS became the first non-motorsport production 911 to combine the wide body with rear-wheel drive – though to be fair both had been available on the Sport Classic and Speedster. The engine came from the Sport Classic but could just as easily have been found on a standard Carrera S with the ‘Powerkit’ option selected. A sports exhaust and PASM adaptive dampers were made standard rather than optional, but the really juicy goodies – sport suspension, ceramic brakes and a limited-slip differential, remained on the extras list.
