Porsche Oz marks 70 years with special GT3 Touring

PORSCHE Cars Australia (PCA) has announced the first ‘market specific’ special-edition model in its seven-decade history – the 911 GT3 70 Years Porsche Australia Edition – based on the just-unveiled 992-series 911 GT3 with Touring Package.

 

Featuring a unique Fish Silver Grey metallic paint finish developed exclusively for this special-edition model, the GT3 70 Years is also the first GT3 to have a non-black interior and the world’s first ‘market specific’ model developed by Porsche to be based on a high-performance GT variant.

 

Limited to just 25 units and carrying a significant $124,700 premium over the regular $369,700 GT3 with Touring Package owing to its unique specification and additional equipment, the GT3 70 Years Porsche Australia Edition shares its donor car’s 375kW/470Nm 4.0-litre flat-six and will be offered with both six-speed manual and seven-speed PDK transmissions, built to customer order.

 

PCA director of sales and motorsport Toni Andreevski said the anniversary edition “had to be an iconic sportscar that we felt was relevant to our market; Australians love motorsport and they really like GT cars.”

 

Mr Andreevski revealed that PCA did not initially think it would be possible to take the unprecedented step of basing the anniversary addition on a GT product, let alone launch it in parallel with the vehicle on which it is based.

 

“When Boris (Apenbrink, Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur director) and the team said that could be an idea, it could be a possibility, we just jumped at that opportunity,” he said.

 

“We’re not launching a market edition a year later when the car has already been on sale – we’re actually starting with the market edition exactly at the same time.”

 

Speaking to Australian automotive media via web link, Mr Apenbrink said it took the Stuttgart firm two years to develop the Australia-specific GT3 70 Years and a large portion of this time was dedicated to perfecting the paint colour – inspired by the Fish Silver Grey worn by one of the first two Porsche 356s imported to Australia in 1951.

 

He explained that Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur had taken on responsibility for developing custom paint finishes last year due to growing demand – especially among GT customers – and that the GT3 70 Years was “basically one of the first cars that went through the paint-to-sample process”.

 

“We had a little material sample that was sent to us by Porsche Cars Australia and they said ‘we want to have this colour’,” said Mr Apenbrink.

 

“Of course, we cannot use the 356 paint in the modern paint technology in our factory so we really had to redevelop this colour and make it a modern interpretation of this colour shade … and I can tell you it is one of the most complicated colours we’ve done!

 

“There are two Fish Silver Greys in the past and so there was a lot of discussions in the beginning [about] which one is the right one, but fortunately we had the sample – there’s a greyish one and a greenish one from those times.”

 

The result is a colour that looks strikingly different from the plethora of silvers and greys in 2021 due to the modern use of safer, more environmentally friendly water-based paints.

 

“Getting this appearance was very difficult for our colourists … because there are little pigments in the colour that make this appearance in the colour shade,” said Mr Apenbrink.

 

“In the past you had chemical-based colours where it was much easier to get this appearance than with water-based colours that we use nowadays. So it was really months of work for those people to re-develop and redesign this old vintage colour from the ’50s in a modern 911 paint job.”

 

Once the GT3 70 Years has finished its run, Fish Silver Grey metallic will eventually become available to global customers through Porsche’s ‘individual colour program’, among 105 other colours that 911 customers can choose from.

 

As for inside the GT3 70 Years, it’s arguably even more different than the exterior. Mr Apenbrink said this was “the first time ever that we have a GT3 with an interior colour that is not black”.

 

“We wanted to have an interior that matches the Fish Silver Grey and gives it a very special touch – a combination of dark (Graphite) blue and black leather colour combined with the seat centres you’d probably call tartan. And it also has a history with Porsche as this (tartan upholstery) was used especially in the ’80s in a lot of 911 models.”

 

Yet it’s Australian Porsche history that underpins the GT3 70 Years.

 

“Every time we embark on one of these projects I always look for a little bit of meaning, a little bit of authenticity behind it,” said Grant Larson, who designed the original Porsche Boxster concept and is now director of special projects at Style Porsche.

 

“In this case of 70 years of Porsche Australia, it’s almost a romantic story about how it all started – a chance meeting of Porsche test driver Richard von Frankenberg and Norman Hamilton on the Grossglockner Pass in Austria … who, by means of a handshake, signed a contract in November of 1951 to be the Australian importer for Porsche (only the second market outside of Europe, after the United States),” he said.

 

“Porsche’s archives is a playground in itself and we found the original birth certificate of the car, we found that exact car (the 1951 356 convertible) and noticed of course it was Fish Silver Grey with a blue interior, all hand-written down – all that stuff is what gives this project so much more background and authenticity.”

 

Besides its unique Fish Silver Grey metallic exterior colour and history-making interior with Graphite Blue bucket seats featuring ‘Madraskaro’ check inlays and Crayon stitching, other items unique to the GT3 70 Years Porsche Australia Edition include ‘Darksilver’ forged alloys (20-inch front, 21-inch rear) with the outer rims custom-painted in Fish Silver Grey metallic and an Australian flag badge on each B-pillar with ‘70 Years Porsche Australia Edition’ in silver lettering.

 

There is also dashboard trim in Fish Silver Grey metallic with ‘GT3 70 Years Porsche Australia Edition’ lettering in black, Fish Silver Grey metallic centre console trim, a leather centre storage-bin lid with ‘70’ embossed into it, gear-shift pattern on the gear-lever in ‘Crayon’ and sill plates in brushed black aluminium with ‘GT3’ (illuminated) and ‘70 Years Porsche Australia Edition’ lettering.

 

Other features include a GT3 multi-function sports steering wheel with 12-o’clock marker in ‘Crayon’, Fish Silver Grey metallic vehicle keys, a leather key pouch in black and Graphite Blue with Crayon stitching, and an indoor car cover in Graphite Blue with Crayon piping, ‘GT3 70 Years Porsche Australia Edition’ lettering on the sides in Crayon and a ‘Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur’ logo on the front in Crayon.

 

Additional specification over the regular GT3 with Touring Package includes Chrono Package with preparation for ‘lap-trigger’, Light Design package with additional ambient lighting, Touring Package exterior in black (tailpipe and side-window trims) but with rear ‘PORSCHE’ logo in Lightsilver, tinted LED main headlights, high-gloss black brake calipers, roof lining and sun visors in Race-Tex, speaker trims painted in the interior colour, cup-holder trims in leather, an extended leather package, a storage package and a Bose surround-sound system.

 

“Yes, it’s a GT product but we wanted to also bring a refined, understated element to the vehicle,” said Mr Andreevski.

 

Orders open today (June 16) with deliveries commencing from late 2021.

 

2021 Porsche GT3 with Touring Package pricing*

GT3 with Touring Package	$369,700
GT3 70 Years Porsche Australia Edition	$494,400

*Excludes on-road costs