1997 Porsche 911 GT1 Strassenversion

📸: Photo by Detectandpreserve, courtesy of Wikimedia

Just as we gave McLaren a pass on their phenomenal F1 and reviewed model year 1997 instead of 1999, we are going to make the same allowance for just about the same reason: the 1997 911 GT1 was/is a beast of a rare supercar and we simply must investigate further. And Porsche discontinued the model after 1997.

What we have here is simply Porsche's attempt at mollifying the officials for what was then known as the BPR Global GT Series (which later became the FIA G Championship). Porsche needed to build 25 street legal versions of their GT1 racecar, so that's just what they did. They stuffed a 3.2 liter, water-cooled, twin-turbo-charged flat 6 in the engine bay, its 537 horsepower able to push the lightweight (2,500 lbs) car to over 190 mph.

📸: Photo by Detectandpreserve, courtesy of Wikimedia

Just a completely gorgeous vehicle from stem to stern. Note the beautiful line from the top of the front fender flowing all the way back over the wheels and up into the ducktail rear. You can almost see the downforce being applied. The Porsche 911 GT1 Strassenversion was not quite as quick as the McLaren F1, not as powerful as the Aston Martin Vantage LeMans, but no doubt King of the Black Forest.