Richard Hammond’s 911 GT3 RS for sale

There was no secret that people liked the 991.1 GT3 RS. It was very likeable. It was an incredibly tough task to replace the godlike 997.2 GT3 RS 4.0 – a model still widely regarded as one of the best sports cars of all time – but because it was technically innovative and exceptionally quick on the track (that 911l eclipsed the Carrera GT’s time on the Nordschleife, let’s not forget), there were few who questioned Porsche’s ability to take the RS game forward.

One of those who apparently didn’t know this was Richard Hammond, a self-professed Porsche fan and serial buyer of top-of-the-range 911s. In 2010, the hamster declared himself (like the rest of us) a diehard fan of the 997.2: “The way it drives along a road or track and there’s a moment, a split second, when the front axle gives way slightly – you can feel through the steering wheel that it’s a living, sensual thing,” he wrote in TG. “The steering is snappy and quick, but still offers the authority to steer the compact, powerful car at will. Using the steering of a 911 feels like being a meerkat steering a pack of lions. The GT3 RS can do everything a 911 needs to do.”

When the time came, the 991 was apparently too hard to resist. This model, with a predictably long options list, was delivered new to Hammond in 2016. A bit of online research suggests the wheels may have been changed in recent years (we’re not complaining), although otherwise it’s the same GT3 RS in Grigio Campovolo Paint to Sample, complete with black leather and Lava Orange Alcantara interior. Of course, specification is in the eye of the beholder – but for us, helped by the Lava Orange roll cage and 918 bucket seats, it works. As it probably did for the buyers who snapped up the car after Hammond owned it.

When the RS was new, there was quite a bit of ire over the lack of a clutch pedal (as was the case with the original 991 GT3). But the Hamster was a vocal proponent of the PDK back then, pointing out that the variant couldn’t do its core job – namely lap times – without the time-saving snappiness of a dual-clutch automatic transmission. That view was borne out when driving: the combination of a 500bhp, naturally aspirated 4.0-litre flat-six engine and a quick-responding gearbox was less a functional advantage than a match made in heaven on the racetrack.

The rest of the car, with its extra-wide body from the Turbo (a first for the RS), had shrunk around the howling powertrain. It was louder, sleeker and much snappier to drive than the GT3, and depending on how much you liked that combination, it pretty much made all the difference whether you could justify the extra cost or not. For some, the road noise and crisp transmission of the road surface was too much. For others, it was a small price to pay for a sublimely hectic – yet wonderfully tame – experience that occurred every time you left the pit lane.

It would be interesting to know how long Hammond stuck with his model. It didn’t take Porsche long to move on to the 991.2 version of the RS, whose chassis components were so sophisticated that they broke the seven-minute barrier on the Nürburgring. The 992 version makes the aerodynamic package of its predecessor look downright dated. But there’s a lot to appreciate about the earlier 991, not least the idea that it might have been a little more accessible than the RS models that followed it. In any case, the £159,995 price tag – while still significantly higher than the £131,296 starting price that Hammond would have easily weathered – doesn’t seem like an unreasonable amount for what is undoubtedly one of the most memorable modern 911s.