11 of the Porsche 911 GT3’s big numbers you need to know

If a picture speaks a thousand words, what does a number speak? Well, we’re not too sure, given that we’re neither linguists nor mathematicians, but we do know one thing: a number speaks plainly.

And no car speaks its numbers more plainly than the 911 GT3. In fact, more than 66 per cent of the 911 GT3 is already expressed in numbers. More than 77 per cent if you add the 992 model code.

Clearly, we’re going to have to crunch the numbers. And also figure out how and indeed if numbers can be, as it were, crunched. Onwards!

That’s the number of horses that Porsche’s managed to fit into the 4.0-litre engine. And they’re proper Brake Horses as well, not those weaker continental ones. Porsche also offers the picture of a horse on its badge. Unfortunately, we’re reliably informed that badges do not, in fact, make anything faster. Therefore we can’t add it to the total number of horses.

The other side of the push-you-back-in-your-seat equation, this happy number refers to the amount of torque on offer. It’s measured, as Brits and Yanks tend to, in lb ft, or the amount of torque one pound (of force, not weight or indeed currency) would enact if placed at the end of a lever that’s one foot long. The metrically minded among you would use Newton metres, which is a measure of the force needed to (deep breath) accelerate a 1kg mass by one metre per second, every second. Which is then the force applied to a lever that’s one metre long. If you want to, you can use kg.m, but we’re 100 per cent happy not to.

Also, one lb ft is equal to 32.174 pounds of mass, accelerating at one foot per second, every second. Mm. Love that imperial measuring system.

The top speed of a PDK-equipped GT3, measured in miles per hour. If you’d like that number larger, we could always convert to metric and get 318km/h – an enticingly bigger figure, if not actually any faster.

If, on the other hand, you wanted a really small number, you could say that the top speed of the 911 GT3 is about one-fifth the rotational speed of the earth at the equator. Harder to convey that on a speed limit sign, mind.

Also, the manual can do 199mph. Just sayin’.

To be at sixes and sevens is a strange phrase meaning to be confused, frazzled, or run off your feet. Helpfully, in the 911 GT3’s case, there’s no confusion – six and seven really only indicates how many feet you need to drive – the six-speed manual requires two (and could likely benefit from three, should you be interested in body augmentation), while the seven-speed Porsche-doppelkupplungsgetriebe takes only one foot to use, and one hell of a deep breath to say out loud.

An essential part of an over-quoted line from Dragonball Z, and also the rev limit of the 4.0-litre flat six that powers the GT3. Just don’t take it over nine thousaaaaaaaaaand!

The weight of the new GT3, with a PDK gearbox, expressed in kilograms. Because we in the UK sell fuel by the litre, get miles per gallon out of it, weigh cars by the kilo and drink beer by the pint. Any questions?

The time (helpfully rendered in minutes and seconds) that it takes a new GT3 to get around the Nordschleife, if you’ve fitted special tyres to it first. And are also an exceptional driver, with ready access to brave pills. And decommissioned F1 circuits in Germany.

It’s also nearly a minute faster than the 996 GT3 managed when it was new. The pace of progress, et cetera.

The precise percentage that the person writing this article would buy the GT3 Touring over the ‘standard’ GT3. This is perhaps not one of the GT3’s big numbers, but 100 per cent is a big number. Also, this just in: 99.9 per cent of you couldn’t give the stuffiest of stuffs how we’d spec a hypothetical Porsche purchase.

This is admittedly a small number, but it’s one with a big result. The key, really, is context. If we attached the word ‘billion’ right after it, that makes quite a bit of difference to one’s bank account and general outlook on life. If we attached ‘seconds’ after it, and the phrase ‘zero to 60 in’ before it, we’d have a car that makes quite a bit of difference to one’s internal organs and ability to not giggle like a loon.

The PDK, with its doppelkupplung, or double clutches, can change gears much faster than a fleshy human can manage with a single clutch. It can therefore charge to 60mph in 3.2 seconds, leaving the DIYer in the dust at a paltry 3.7. The shame.

Neither of these times will be achieved while sideways, of course.

The number of wheels that steer on the new 911 GT3. This is, as you might imagine, a larger amount than your average automobile and indeed more than a million or so 911s made since 1963.

The number of reasons we can’t afford to run out and buy one. Yes, that’s nearly 130,000 pounds sterling, 165,000 freedom francs and presumably a cool half million if you can manage to find one in Australia. Why are cool cars so expensive downunder? Well, stay tuned for our next number-crunching adventure: all of the four-letter words we can use to explain just that.