After $36K in damage and 5 months in the shop - my baby is back!

[Last ICE]

Sorry for the late reply, but I wanted to get some more seat time in the GT3 Touring before I gave my thoughts. We had an incredibly beautiful 70F spring weekend here in the Pacific Northwest. I took the GT3 out around Northern California for several hours on Saturday, and took the Emira out around Southern Oregon Sunday. I love both of these cars, and they could not be more different for being such similar formulas (6-cylinder manuals with double wishbone fronts).
View attachment 78127
View attachment 78128

I've owned many recent model Porsches, and they are probably as perfect as a sports car can be. But what it took me a # of them to realize is that with different 911 models, the exterior generally looks the same, which masks wildly different cars underneath. My 992.2 4GTS T-hybrid and my GT3 Touring look generally the same inside and outside... it's only the engines, transmissions, suspensions and features that are completely different.

The Emira is the wildcat of the 3. It's the slowest, but arguably the most fun. The Emira still has a touch of that "I built this in the garage with my dad" vibe, and I dig that. In no small part because my son & I love modding the Emira together, which is still an option on the Emira. He's sat in the trunk to do our Eventuri and GRP short-shift mods. You can't even see the engine on 911s, so mods are either cosmetics, or require a lift. The Emira has hand-drawn green marker lines on every bolt, for better or worse. It's "human". Porsches are designed by guys in labcoats who hand prototypes to racecar drivers and then calculate the feedback to program the robots. Both are valid approaches.

For steering feel, nothing beats the Emira (aside from older Lotuses, Lotii? Do we have a ruling on that yet?). The Emira tells you about every pebble on the road, which is wonderful, but after several hours, fatiguing. The supercharger howls getting up to speed, which is a total kick even if it's not as fast as it sounds. The cabin is noisy- and you'll open the windows to hear more noise! The Lotus has rough edges, figuratively. It's is a true sports car, that I could never daily, especially the manual in traffic. It's driving a head-turning event, with seats that are good enough, but not road-trip good. I would never show up at work in the Emira - way too much attention. If I showed up at work in the GT3 instead of the GTS, all people would notice is the 911 color changed, not that it was twice the price. I got the GT3 "Touring" model. The regular GT3 has the giant wing on the back. Same car, but one is look at me. The Emira is always "look at me".

I don't want to do 100 MPH and get tickets. I don't have a track anywhere near. My goal with cards is to feel something just going from stoplight to stoplight, or doing 35 around a tight mountain turn. This is where the Emira is unmatched for the money. And this is where 911s can be technically perfect... to the point where you have to be very careful what your goal is when deciding on the deceptively-similar 911 models and features. A base 911 will give you all the feels, but it's a gateway drug to the dizzying 911 linelup. The 911 4GTS is a go-anywhere do-anything in any weather 911. It'll easily go 10MPH faster around mountain roads than the Emira without you realizing it. It's TOO perfect. I didn't realize that was even a thing until I "upgraded" from my first 2WD base 911 to the 4WD GTS - a diagonal upgrade. Not the same animal. It's 600 pounds heavier, less "tossable", and does 0-60 in 2.8 seconds. It's perfection, that has no rough edges. Which actually made it a tad less fun. With the Emira, you're never sure if 1st gear is where you left it last time, or whether it'll feel like going into reverse. It's got "personality"!

I'd never driven a GT3 until I owned one, as good luck finding one on a dealer lot, or them letting you test drive it if they did have one. YouTube reviews were the test drive for me on both the Emira & the GT3. SavageGeese & Throttle House are spot-on in their takes on both cars. And I don't think a 15 minute test drive would tell you much useful about either car anyway. You need to LEARN them. Especially with 911s, it's all subtle details.

So the best way to describe the GT3 is "Smooth." I don't mean just smooth. I mean smoooooooth. The gearbox feels like shifting a well-oiled rifle bolt. When slowing or going downhill the gearbox has slight whine that sounds like a jet engine spooling down that is just incredible. The suspension is both lively, full of feel and yet soaks up the road imperfections without masking them. Its naturally-aspirated 4 liter engine that everyone raves about reving to 9,000 RPM - yeah great but when you're going 0-45-0 in town it just purrs and vibrates your arm thru the doorcard. It's a gentle monster of an engine. It makes the every day drive special. I love it. I know it's underutilized when not tracked but I'm not going to track something that expensive, and it's that excess capability that makes everything you do with it seem effortless to the car. It's the same 3,200 pounds as the Emira, but it seems so much more "solid". Maybe exterior in metal vs. exterior in fiberglass? Both cars handle amazingly. And of course it's got all the usual Porsche "pay extra for every scrap of leather" customization that if you accept and buy into, custom-ordering a Porsche with your exact color stitching and preferred logos and lighting on the doorsills and custom-embossed leather and gauge colors is a wonderful experience. An insanely priced, wonderful experience!

The Emira is a different kind of special, at 1/3rd the price. I think its the best value in the sports car world, and it almost hurts seeing lightly used '24s go for only $85K.

I got into cars late in life, when I stumbled into my first Porsche Cayenne and realized for the first time in decades that I could feel the road. I started taking the scenic route home from work instead of the interstate. And down the Dark Path I went! But I realized it just in time. Both of these cars are a dying breed. The manual transmission is inferior in every way but one: fun. And both these cars are two sides of the same fun coin.

You have a serious future in automotive journalism. Great.