fbpx

Porsche 997 Carrera GTS: ultimate guide

The 997 generation was immensely popular with buyers, and rightly so. By the turn of 2010, however, thoughts at Porsche had already turned towards its replacement, the 991.

Zuffenhausen had no intention of completely ignoring the then-current model though, so as a way of marking its imminent departure, they gave us the car you see here, the rather special GTS.

It arrived later in 2010 with a price tag just shy of £77,000 in Coupe form – which admittedly wasn’t cheap, even in the rarefied world of the 911, but there were some key additions that made this one last hurrah for the 997 very attractive indeed.

997 Carrera GTS interior

One of those additions was the Powerkit, which boosted power to 402bhp at 7,300rpm – just 200rpm short of the red line. Torque delivery also benefitted, and although the same 420Nm as the Carrera S (which peaked at 4,400rpm), it was now spread across a wider rev range from 4,200-5,600rpm.

A handy 320Nm arrived at just 1,500 revs too, so there was plenty of shove at light throttle openings. What hadn’t changed was the use of the direct-injected 3.8-litre flat six with four valves per cylinder operated by twin-overhead camshafts per bank, constructed using an alloy block and cylinder heads.

Lubrication was via a dry sump arrangement with an electronic on-demand oil pump for greater efficiency, Variocam Plus was standard, and there was a variable resonance intake system that used six vacuum-controlled flaps to provide those boosts to power and torque.

997 Carrera GTS wheel

When combined with a 12.5:1 compression ratio, further tweaks to the shape of the inlet ports and a standard sports exhaust resulted in an impressive 106bhp per litre.

It was efficient too, considering the performance on offer, the twin catalytic convertors ensuring that the GTS puffed out little more than 250g/km of CO2 – less if you chose the self-shifter.

To read more about the 997 Carrera GTS, the predecessor to the newly released Porsche 991 Carrera GTS pick up a copy of Total 911 issue 118 by ordering online or downloading it now.

997 Carrera GTS engine

Comments (0)