Porsche 911 GT2, 2002
Chassis No.: WP0AB29902S696135 $220,000 | Sold • Exterior: Arctic Silver • Interior: Black • Nicknamed ‘The Widowmaker’ • 1 of 184 sold in the United States • 5,600 miles • Rear wheel drive • 3.6L Bi-Turbo engine • Rated at 456 HP and 457 ft/lbs of torque • Carbon package • Black leather seating • Speed Yellow seat belts • Cruise control • Aluminum instrument dials • California car • Porsche Certificate of Authenticity • Owner’s manual Porsche has earned its reputation as one of the world’s top-two sports car makers by literally staying ahead of the competition at every turn. The practice is a synergetic one involving both Porsche management’s philosophy and its customers’ insistence on the latest performance improvements. Unsurprisingly, as soon as the water-cooled 996 arrived in 2001, customers began asking for more power, even more than the new Turbo’s 415 HP and 413 lb-ft of torque. The new Turbo also received some criticism from purists for being too technically refined, but Porsche was already cooking up the answer, and it came in the bare-knuckled form of the GT2: the fastest production Porsche ever made, and one obviously aimed at the most demanding enthusiasts. The GT2 was, as Car and Driver magazine described it, the 911 distilled down to its essence, the Turbo’s “street-fighting counterpart, capable of shameless wheelspin, eyeball-flattening acceleration, and generous measures of oversteer, that brink-of-disaster sideways progress that hard-core Porschephiles profess to treasure so dearly.” Devoid of driver-assist technologies and packing 35 more horses than the Turbo, the GT2 was designed to remove all boundaries between car and driver. It deleted all-wheel drive, the rear seats, the spare tire and Porsche’s Stability Management system. Leather-covered fiberglass units replaced the standard front seats in the stripped interior, which nonetheless featured power windows, mirrors and door locks, a Porsche sound system and automatic climate control. The GT2’s racing-spec wishbone-and-coilover suspension featured adjustable sway bars, ride height, camber and caster settings, and Porsche’s outstanding carbon-ceramic disc brakes. The aerodynamics were also massaged to increase downforce, and the entire car sat almost an inch lower than the Turbo. At the time of its manufacture, the GT2 delivered the Porsche driving experience in its rawest form, and with just 176 built and 5,600 miles since new, this is one of the most exclusive of Porsche’s glorious creations. https://www.mecum.com/lots/465389/2002-porsche-911-gt2/
