SERIAL WINNER

Porsche's 911 GT3 has set the benchmark for finely focused, road- and track- going sports coupes for 25 years, we plot its evolution by comparing an original example against the very latest

- by JAMES TAYLOR PHOTOGRAPHY by ANDY MORGAN

THE FIRST FAT, HEAVY DROPS FALL LAZILY FROM the sky and drum on the roof of the Porsche like dried peas on a biscuit tin; clearly, there's no sound deadening behind the roof lining.

' Not my words but John Barker's in issue 12 of evo back in 1999. The Porsche 911 GT3 was a brand-new model-line then, a water-cooled replacement for the last air-cooled 911 Carrera RS, and the car world was still getting to know it. What exactly was this lower, lairier 911 with an unfamiliar badge?

JB dashed from Britain into France in the original 996-generation GT3 to get to know it better and glimpse a total eclipse of the sun in the process, dodging crowds doing the same in Cornwall. ('It was a deeply moving experience, never to be forgotten. And the eclipse was pretty special too.') Naturally, it chucked it down for most of the journey. A couple of months prior, Dickie Meaden had driven the 996 GT3 for the first time in Germany. It chucked it down there too. And a few months later, the GT3 triumphed in a soggy evo Car of the Year test in Scotland. This car was turning out to be something special.

Twenty-six years on, I'm in the elephant-ear-shaped Recaro of an Arctic Silver first-generation 996 GT3, driving across the North York Moors. Aptly, it's chucking it down.

But this time it has company: the LED headlights of the latest 992.2-generation 911 GT3 shine through the murk in the rear-view mirror, bisected by the 996's taco wing.

We're here with the current bookends of Porsche 911 GT3 history not only for a spot of time travel, but to discover how much things have changed, what direction the model has evolved in, and whether anything's been lost along the way, or alternatively whether it's a car that has improved out of all recognition.