New Porsche 911 GT3 Manthey: Still Need That RS? | 4K

0:00 This is the Porsche 911 GT3 with Manti kit.

0:04 If you want all the bits of the kit for your GT3,

0:08 it'll cost you a Cayman GT4 to add them over $80,000.

0:14 So, should you do it?

0:16 To help those poor deprived GT3 owners out there decide what to do,

0:21 we're going to answer a few questions.

0:24 Questions like, what changes have been made from a regular GT3?

0:29 Why do we get all flustered about Manti?

0:32 Is it now an even stiffer track car?

0:35 Has the cabin been changed much?

0:38 And will it still skid around?

0:41 But let's start with the car itself.

0:45 Here we have a pair of GT3s.

0:47 One a regular one with the wing fitted,

0:50 one fitted with £8,298 worth of Manti bits and bobs.

0:57 So, should we get into it and have a little bit of a look around?

0:59 And we can start right at the front here with the towing eye because these are

1:04 Manti's own towing eyes and they're very clever

1:07 cuz they operate independently of the normal thread,

1:10 but they will set you back 668 lb at the front and another at the back.

1:15 Then we have Mantisplitter.

1:18 It extends a little bit further,

1:19 but the really trick stuff is that you see how curved it is up the front.

1:23 It runs up a bit.

1:25 It's designed to channel more air

1:28 underneath the car because what happens underneath

1:30 this car is cleverer than what happens to the air over the top of it.

1:33 And we'll get into that a bit more at the back.

1:36 First of all, Manti's own wheels.

1:39 These are their lightweight aluminum wheels which

1:42 save 6 kilos over the Porsche option.

1:45 That GT3 is on magnesium wheels and apparently these are

1:49 very nearly as light as Porschee's own magnesium wheels.

1:53 And if you want an even lighter set, Manti will do you a magnesium wheel.

1:58 However, I think these are just beautiful looking.

2:01 There are so many cutaways and gaps in them.

2:04 Then we get into the brakes.

2:06 Okay, the only way you can tell this has got the uprated

2:09 brake kit is that it's got green brake pads in it.

2:13 And that's a Manti signature.

2:15 They are a,275 quid option at the front and 1,175 at the rear.

2:22 It's also got braided brake hoses in it because the tricky stuff here is

2:26 that Manti have to keep in touch

2:29 with all of Porsche's's homologation for the car.

2:32 They can't just do willy-nilly stuff like cutting a load of weight of it

2:35 out because it has to go through all the same tests as a regular GT3.

2:41 Now, the stuff you can't see in behind here, springs and dampers.

2:45 And for me, this is actually where the real magic of this car lies.

2:49 It's got a lovely set of green springs in there which are 20% stiffer than

2:53 the ones fitted to a regular GT3

2:56 and then a passive damper with four-way adjustable.

2:59 You've got the big clicks on it to do it.

3:01 It operates over about 12 or 15 clicks.

3:05 But the interesting thing is the difference between the road setting

3:07 and the track setting that they recommend is only about two clicks either way.

3:13 We'll move back down the car a bit.

3:15 Manti sticker obviously.

3:16 And there's a lovely little one here.

3:18 Manti closer to perfection.

3:21 There we go.

3:22 And then we get to the bit that for me is a little bit controversial.

3:25 We've seen splitters.

3:26 We've seen big wings.

3:28 These are a bit of an unusual thing, aren't they?

3:30 Discs.

3:31 However, they do clip on and off very quickly.

3:35 And where the wheel has to be torqued up to 700 Newton meters,

3:39 those one piece carbon only to about 15 new meters.

3:42 So, you can take them on and off with an Allen key pretty easily.

3:46 And honestly, for driving on the road,

3:49 you're going to look a burke if you keep those on it.

3:51 So, take them off.

3:53 Now, we're going to talk a bit more about arrow because

3:55 as we get to the back of here and the lovely Manti stuff,

3:58 you start to see the other big difference between this and the GT3.

4:03 And again, it's all to do with air flow.

4:04 So, you've got this much bigger section of air

4:08 coming off the back of the car here.

4:10 Now, what it's designed to do is it's designed to keep

4:13 that air flow attached through here and push it over

4:17 to the center of the car because then they can

4:20 use that surface there to keep all the air flow going.

4:24 It's a very, very techy bit of kit.

4:28 And apparently, even in ordinary running,

4:30 it still runs at about 107% as efficient through the air as that GT3 rear wing.

4:37 So, it's actually more efficient through the air than

4:39 that despite having more arrow going on up here.

4:42 Um, the rest of that carbon pack, that's a 12,000 lb carbon pack.

4:47 It's just nuts.

4:48 Then down the bottom here, you've got another towing eye and the diffuser.

4:52 And the diffuser on this is taken from the GT3 RS.

4:58 Further underneath, the main news is the completely new underbody.

5:02 The most efficient manti designated underbody ever created, they say.

5:07 Featuring airflow elements up to 150 cm long that are

5:11 designed to push and pull the air to where it's needed.

5:15 Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention.

5:18 While the front springs are 20% stiffer than in the regular GT3,

5:22 the rears are actually 6% softer.

5:28 Right, the cabin where not much has changed at all because as I was saying,

5:33 Manti has to stick with all of Porsche's's warranty stuff.

5:37 So, they want to change the bits they think are important to them,

5:40 not just do extra flim flam for the sake of it.

5:43 However, what I do like when you get the Manti

5:47 kit and it is sent to your Porsche center for fitting,

5:51 number one job on the list is this little badge here.

5:55 That is number one thing to do when you get the kit,

5:58 not do the suspension or anything else.

6:00 Interestingly, that suspension,

6:03 one of the tests they have to do with it to meet Porsche's homologation,

6:06 it has to go through a million compressions.

6:09 They have to do that.

6:10 They mant I reckon it's equivalent to 200,000

6:13 kilometers of running because all components that they fit have to be able to go

6:20 with Porsche's's 15-year maximum warranty for the cars.

6:24 I mean, that must that alone, you can start to see where all the money goes when

6:28 you realize the amount of effort they have to go to.

6:31 Anyway, back to the interior where we

6:34 have the standard Porsche seats, which are fabulous.

6:37 They're so good at holding you into place.

6:39 They're nicely shaped, but for me, I find them a little bit hollowbacked.

6:43 Do like the fact they've got these removable headrests in them,

6:47 so you got more room for your helmet.

6:49 Then in the back, you've got a big cage in here.

6:52 Again, it's optional.

6:53 Um, and this one obviously is a PDK.

6:57 For me, a sweet spot is probably because you can get these Manti kits.

7:03 You can just have sections of it.

7:05 You can have the springs and dampers and stick them on a touring.

7:08 That's it.

7:09 That's it for me.

7:11 We'll drive it in a moment.

7:13 But why all the fuss about Manti?

7:16 Well, this is Olaf Manti.

7:19 looks more like a jovial wood cutter but actually

7:21 a very successful DTM and Carrera Cup driver.

7:26 Olaf founded Manti Racing in 1996 and his team

7:30 immediately dominated the international Porsche Super Cup Series.

7:35 Manti was soon building its own race cars and even

7:39 won the GT class at Lemore on its debut in 1999.

7:44 Since then, the rise has been meteoric,

7:46 and Manti is now the most successful team to ever

7:49 race the Nurburg Ring 24 with seven outright victories.

7:55 Manti merged with Raider Motorsport in 2013,

7:58 and Porsche took a controlling stake in trusting Manti with running

8:03 its factory 911s at Lau and in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

8:09 Manti now has six class wins at Lemore

8:12 and more recently has been dominating the German DTM series,

8:16 taking two titles in the last 3 years.

8:20 No one knows more about making Porsches go faster around a racetrack,

8:24 even if they're road cars.

8:26 Fitted with Manti kits, both GT2 RS and more recently GT3 RS have taken 4

8:33 seconds out of the lap time set by the standard cars.

8:37 Thruxton start line.

8:38 Can I tell you everything you need to know in a lap?

8:42 Standing start.

8:45 Wow.

8:46 Off we go.

8:47 Porsche's launch control as impressive as ever.

8:51 And straight into turn one at 100 miles an hour.

8:56 W.

8:56 Tell you what, the first thing you

8:58 notice is how amazingly effective the brakes are, but how fluent it feels.

9:06 Got to run the tight sections.

9:08 It's really ringing grip out of that front tire.

9:12 And then you've just It's all about confidence, Thruxton.

9:15 Right, we're into the fast stuff now.

9:17 It's brace yourself time.

9:19 It just feels so fluid.

9:21 I've got such confidence in it, though.

9:24 And this is what mantai go on about.

9:26 Drivability, confidence, performance.

9:28 On we go.

9:29 The brakes are just exceptional.

9:31 And yeah, I've easily could have break quite a bit later there.

9:35 And then it's just the way it rides the curves through here.

9:38 The moment we're running a cup two, not a cup 2R.

9:44 And there's the line.

9:45 So that's a lap done and I haven't told you everything you need to know.

9:48 So let's carry on a bit, shall we?

9:50 I drove it on the Cup 2 R earlier

9:53 and it just felt so much performance in that tire.

9:57 Here you're starting already to outdrive the tire on the Cup Twos.

10:04 Oh, but the chassis of it and the stability,

10:08 you've got this lovely sort of calm motion to it

10:12 all the time where it's just it's moving around, but the movements are calm.

10:19 And this is what I just think is fabulous about this.

10:22 Yes, the front springs are stiffer, but they don't feel stiffer at all.

10:28 Let's take it into manual mode.

10:29 Gearbox is as hilariously good as it ever has been.

10:34 And oh yeah, right, let's get better on the brakes into here.

10:40 That's better.

10:42 Oh, you can hear the tires protesting a bit.

10:46 Right, there we go.

10:47 Starting to build a rhythm with it now

10:49 cuz this is excellent compared with the regular GT3.

10:54 It just feels like it's got more time to deal with things.

10:58 And I think that is just so deeply impressive.

11:01 And that's what you're getting with Manti, isn't it?

11:03 Just this phenomenal race knowledge of exactly what a 911 is capable of.

11:11 They can just slim the margins down of what they're looking at for the car.

11:16 Porsche have got to have even on GT3s.

11:19 We've got to build these cars with bandwidth.

11:21 Manti can just slim all that down.

11:27 I've never driven a car that flows through there so well.

11:29 And the last things I was here were in were a Valkyrie and an AMG1.

11:34 And I reckon I'm faster around large chunks of here

11:38 in this simply because it gives you so much confidence.

11:43 We're going to call that it and just give it a cool

11:47 down lap and try and gather my thoughts because as cars go,

11:54 what amazes me more about this is that it feels softer.

11:57 So, I know the spring rates are up at the front a bit,

11:59 20%, and they're down at the back a bit,

12:02 but it's the damping that's the true genius

12:05 of this because it's taken away that sharpness

12:09 you get from a standard GT3 where you turn it in and if it hits a bump,

12:14 it starts hopping and skipping a bit.

12:16 The technology, I mean, damping is incredible.

12:19 Damping and tires, that's where it's all at.

12:23 And it's taken away that slight bit of sharpness in a GT3 where it feels

12:28 and that and that by the way is at the tip top of where road cars are already.

12:34 And this feels like a decent step on.

12:38 It's not a small step this.

12:41 It's a decent step on.

12:43 And it's passive damping.

12:45 Passive damping.

12:46 It's amazing.

12:48 And even though there's like 12 15 clicks in each of these dampers,

12:53 the difference between the road setting and the track setting is two or three.

12:57 It's amazing.

12:59 It really is.

13:00 How competent and capable this car is.

13:03 It's not as focused and hardcore as a GT3 RS.

13:08 It doesn't feel like that.

13:10 But if you haven't got an order down for a GT3 RS or whatever,

13:16 or you've frightened other than money, and who wouldn't be,

13:19 then this with a Manti kit starts to ask

13:23 some quite significant questions of the regular car.

13:31 As it sits here, this fully loaded GT3 with Manti kit costs £280,000.

13:39 That's very, very hard to justify.

13:42 You could have a used GT3 RS instead,

13:45 and it would probably be a safer place for your money.

13:48 So, unless your name is York Bergmeister, here's what to do.

13:52 Have the springs and dampers.

13:54 They are the most transformative element of this whole package.

13:58 me, I'd fit them to a manual GT3 Touring and be happy forever.