The most thrilling 911 ever

published 24 November 2017

I'm beginning to think we've been conned, says Andrew Frankel in The Daily Telegraph. Remember all those hybrid hypercars, the LaFerrari, McLaren P1 and Porsche 918 Spyder? They were launched at about the same time and, although "ferociously expensive and massively complex", they did at least appear to redraw the boundaries of what was possible in terms of performance. Then along comes the Porsche 911 GT2 RS. It may be rather expensive at just over £200,000, but that's still less than a third of the money you'd hand over for the aforementioned hypercars.

What's more, this standard production derivative of the 911 appears to be quicker than all of them without using any of the technical wizardry. It is just "beautifully executed and resolutely adherent to fast-car first principles and unmoved by new technologies that don't assist in its aim". But what's really surprising is "not how fast it goes, but how it goes fast". You won't be able to test the car's limits off the race track, but it can "still be enjoyed thanks to unexpectedly impressive ride quality, excellent visibility, superb steering and the ability to overtake almost anything anywhere". "Half a century on, it seems the 911 is "not quite done surprising us yet."

The car feels every bit as responsive and urgent as a hypercar, and the engine and performance are phenomenal, agrees Matt Prior in Autocar. It's also surprisingly refined for a car that's been deliberately tweaked to deliver performance that is simply "ridiculous". The £100,000 premium over the Porsche GT3 is hard to justify, says Kyle Fortune in AutoExpress, but buyers of cars like this will not care. All they'll care about is whether this is the fastest, most powerful, most thrilling 911 ever. And it is.

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Price: from £207,506Engine: 3,800cc, twin-turbocharged flat-six petrolPower: 690bhp at 7,000rpmTorque: 535lb ft at 2,500rpmTop speed: 211mph0-62mph: 2.8 seconds

Stuart graduated from the University of Leeds with an honours degree in biochemistry and molecular biology, and from Bath Spa University College with a postgraduate diploma in creative writing.

He started his career in journalism working on newspapers and magazines for the medical profession before joining MoneyWeek shortly after its first issue appeared in November 2000. He has worked for the magazine ever since, and is now the comment editor.

He has long had an interest in political economy and philosophy and writes occasional think pieces on this theme for the magazine, as well as a weekly round up of the best blogs in finance.

His work has appeared in The Lancet and The Idler and in numerous other small-press and online publications.