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Opinion: How special is the 911 Turbo S Exclusive GB edition?

£16,934. That is the difference in list price between a standard Porsche 991 Turbo S and the Exclusive GB Edition unveiled by Porsche GB on Tuesday. Even on the most expensive 911 in the current range, that’s a hefty difference.

The extra outlay doesn’t really appear to offer you much other than some black painted parts that try and evoke the spirit of the original Porsche 930 (something that is broadly impossible on the 991 Turbo, a car so different to its ancestor that throwbacks simply don’t work).

Inside, there isn’t much giving away the fact this is an limited edition 911, bar the etching on the passenger-side interior trim, the illuminated sill plates, and the rather tasteless Union flag embossing on the centre storage lid.

Porsche 930 3.0
GB Edition Turbo has apparently been designed with the original Porsche 930 3.0 in mind.

All the other interior options are options that you could specify on your own 991 Turbo S. That’s where, as well as leaving me cold visually, the 911 Turbo S Exclusive GB Edition has me puzzling.

A quick play with the online car configurator left me with a 991 Turbo S that included the gorgeous centre-lock wheels, as well as a host of extra goodies (including Burmester stereo, adaptive cruise control, and the electric glass sunroof) all for £12,000 less than the base cost of the GB Edition.

There are so many no-cost options available on the 991 Turbo S that speccing up a goody-laden Porsche is easy, with my hypothetical car also sporting the bucket seats, and Sapphire Blue Metallic paint.

991 Turbo S configurator
One-in-40 exclusivity can be beaten by using the gargantuan options list available on any new 911.

One of the selling points of the 911 Turbo S Exclusive GB Edition is that only 40 will be made (in a selection of just three colours: red, white, and silver). It’s this perceived rarity that you are really paying for, not the lick of gloss black paint and Guards Red seatbelts.

Yet, while special edition 911s sometimes hold more value than they’re standard counterparts (we’re thinking of de facto factory builds such as the Anniversary editions) I don’t think a region specific model is really going to have much of a pull on a car market driven by international buyers.

It feels like a money-making exercise that hasn’t been given much thought, especially as, as soon as you start selecting options for any 911 it immediately becomes a one-of-a-kind car. The likelihood of you seeing another modern 911 with exactly the same specification is extremely rare given the sheer multitude of options available.

The standard Porsche 991 Turbo S is better looking in our eyes.
The standard Porsche 991 Turbo S is better looking in our eyes.

Rather than a pretend throwback to another era, I would rather Porsche GB had unveiled some sort of ‘anniversary pack’ that provided a number of expensive options at a reduced rate.

Or, better still, I wish Porsche in Germany had decided to create a ’40 Jahre’ Turbo themselves that, instead of locking backwards, was firmly routed in the future and included some tangible performance upgrades (I’m thinking a modern-day 964 Turbo Leicthbau).

Instead, we’ve been saddled with a car that looks a little bit too ‘aftermarket’ (at least for my tastes) and, as a UK-only model, has relatively little appeal to anyone outside of Great Britain. We’ll stick with our ‘normal’ Turbo S, thanks…

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