Next year will mark a decade since the LMP-styled Porsche Carrera GT went out of production. Good examples were trading around the sticker price ($440,000) until 2013 when actor and driver Paul Walker was killed in one along with his friend Roger Rodas. By May of the next year, values were up $50,000, and now they’re into the stratosphere. By January 2016, a top example was at nearly a million dollars. Surely, some of that increase has to do with the car’s now-grisly history, but part of it also has to be the GT’s still-high-tech 5.7-liter V10.
The powerplant was originally built by Porsche for Formula 1 in 1992. The project was canceled, then resurrected for a Le Mans prototype, which was also canceled so it wouldn’t conflict with Audi’s Le Mans effort. Porsche used a 5.5-liter version in a concept at the Paris Motor Show in 2000 and, with help from all the new Cayenne SUV money that was pouring in, decided to build a run of 1,500 cars. Only about 1,300 were built due to U.S. airbag regulations, but the car became a legend.
The engine was placed amidships, just in front of the rear wheels, and delivered a still-impressive 612 hp and a less-impressive 435 lb-ft of torque. It had a 68-degree V, dual overhead cams, variable valve timing and sodium-cooled valves. Its redline was a racy 8,400 rpm. Mileage was 9 mpg in the city. Take that, EPA!
Its official 0-60 time was 3.9 seconds, but 3.6 wasn’t unheard of in the wild. And remember, this was in 2004 when a Ferrari 360 could only muster a 4.6-second sprint to the same number. Besides that, just look at the thing: It’s gorgeous, in an alien spaceship kind of way.
Check out our original review here and please excuse the formatting. The internet was barely invented.
Jake Lingeman – Jake Lingeman is Road Test Editor at Autoweek, reviewing cars, reporting on car news, car tech and the world at large. Read more »See more by this author»
source http://cardetailingphoenix.com/index.php/2016/12/08/how-cool-was-the-porsche-carrera-gts-v10/
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