This Porsche 996 GT3 R is being offered for sale by Coys of London. When it was launched in 1998, the Porsche Type 996 represented one of the most significant changes to the 911 model range in its (then) 35-year history. While all previous road-going 911 models had been powered by Porsche’s air-cooled six-cylinder engine, the 996 ushered in the model’s first water-cooled power plant. The standard road car was fitted with a 3.4-litre version of the new water-cooled engine.
Just one year later, the 996 GT3 model was introduced featuring a larger 3.6-litre engine, which developed 360bhp at 7200rpm, and gave this performance model a top speed of 188mph (302km/h). Porsche’s engineers were never far off developing a racing version of any of the 911 models throughout the company’s history, and as from late 1998 development work on a racing 996 GT3 model was already underway. The first hurdle to jump was to have the car ready for the Le Mans test weekend in May 1999, but by this time the model had already undergone many thousands of miles testing at Weissach and at Paul Ricard.
