What lies beneath
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW FAR REMOVED from even the raciest street-legal Porsche is this 911 RSR-19 – its current Le Mans and World Endurance Championship contender – you don’t need to drive it, though I have. You don’t even need to pore over its specification, nor crawl all over it, though I did. All you really need to do is ask Porsche’s head of WEC operations Alex Stehlig a simple question.
“If I gave you a new road 911 and asked you to turn it into an RSR...” And that’s as far as you get before Stehlig looks at you as if you’ve parted company with your senses. “You couldn’t,” he says, wide-eyed at the thought.
Try from the other direction. “Okay, could you show me round the car and point out those components that have come from the road car?” Alex pauses, now lost in thought, before he smiles as an answer pops into his head. “Here!” he says pointing to the rear lights.
“So the RSR has the same rear lights as B a road 911?”
“The lights? No. Just the plastic covers.”
“Anything else?”
Alex walks to the other end of the car and points at the Porsche sticker that passes for a badge on the bonnet. “That,” he says.
