Porsche 911 GT3 Touring vs. Porsche 911 S/T: Road Test

porsche 911 gt3 touring and porsche 911 st
Porsche 911 GT3 Touring Vs. Porsche 911 S/TJibran Kutik
porsche 911 gt3 touring and porsche 911 st
Jibran Kutik

“Be honest. It’s basically the same car,” the Instagram comment read. Hard to blame the commenter here, as, particularly in deep black, the 911 S/T does look the spitting image of the GT3 Touring from which it was birthed, which, to the untrained eye, looks basically the same as all the other 911s in production today, and, to be honest, most of the ones before them, too.

The GT3 Touring, or, as it is technically called, “GT3 with Touring Package,” (more on that later) was last year’s “if you know, you know” darling. A GT3 with some chrome window trim, a wing delete, and basically nothing more, the Touring represents everything Porschephiles love about the brand. You got a racing-bred engine that revs to the sky shoved inside a low-key-looking body devoid of wings, scoops, or flairs. It has an available short-throw six-speed transmission, and for no real reason, production numbers well underneath the potential demand, creating one of the industry’s only short-term appreciating asset classes for those with access to allocations.

Throw in endlessly customizable colors and trims through the Exclusive Manufaktur program - tens of thousands of possible unique specifications, and the rest of the math sorts itself out right away.

porsche 911 gt3 touring and porsche 911 st
Jibran Kutik

If you don’t know cars, it’s just another 911. If you do know cars, or even better, if you’ve spent time wheeling one, you understand why people are willing to pay tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars over MSRP to get a GT3 Touring. Ferrari, Lamborghini, Audi, and Aston Martin have all but abandoned manual transmissions and natural aspiration, but not Porsche. If you want a brand new exotic in which to row your own, Porsche is the last, best game in town.

The irony is, that for all its talents, the GT3 Touring is not particularly adept at... touring.

Sure, you can get the comfort seats and lots of leather, such as my friend Geoff has optioned in his spectacular Oak Green over Cognac example you see in these photos. But as I noted in my review of the car for The Smoking Tire back in 2022, the chassis setup, while fantastically sharp in the corners, is nervous on the highway. It bucks and darts at relatively slight imperfections in the road surface -- what I frequently refer to as a “Two-handed driving experience.”

porsche 911 gt3 touring and porsche 911 st
Jibran Kutik

I’m not the only one to note this. Journalists and owners with experience across Porsche’s spectrum have made similar comments. Zuffenhausen has heard them. Many owners, including my automotive mentor, Top Gear’s Chris Harris, eschewed the 992 GT3 Touring for the previous generation, which is more livable as a road car.