Teamspeed First Drive: TechArt GTstreet RS
Teamspeed's Karl Peskett gets some seat time in one of Techart's beauties
Text by Karl Peskett - Teamspeed contributing editor

Leonberg in the German countryside is the location for an unassuming light grey building. It’s two storeys high, and a sloping car park on the right hand side dips away to a few garages at the back. To drive down the road, you’d probably go straight past it. Sure, there’s some glass frontage, but apart from a small sign, you’d be hard pressed to notice what they do there.

A Porsche Cayenne out the front, save the body kit, gives little away. But once you step inside, you realize that this is a grown-man’s creche. You could spend hours poring over the collection of highly modified Porsches.

This is TechArt, probably the most comprehensive tuner of the iconic sports car manufacturer.

Thomas Behringer, the founder of TechArt, says he’s always been a Porsche fanatic, but reckons he could finish them off better. With the GTstreet RS sitting out the front as the pinnacle of his work, it’s hard to disagree.

A factory tour is probably the best way to get an appreciation for the work that TechArt does. It’s a literal maze of rooms and workshops over three levels of the building. But the range of abilities and modifications available is staggering. Anything you want to change about the car, you can. Colours, textures, styling, sound – you name it, it can be done.

The range of leathers and where they can be put is quite amazing. An entire Cayenne cabin being redone in a crimson carpet and cow-hide in not uncommon. The guys there know how to dismantle and reassemble any Porsche you care to think of, meaning modifications go more under the skin than just a simple badge addition.

Take for example, the GTstreet RS. This is more than just a piggyback ECU whacked onto a GT2 – it’s a complete overhaul of what is already a very good car.

For the TechArt GTstreet RS, the recipe is simple. Take a Porsche GT2, tune the heck out of it, do some aerodynamic, suspension and interior modifications, and the result imbues the GTstreet RS with a much more aggressive character than the GT2 on which it's based.

At idle it sounds like an old-school Porsche. A bit lumpy, gruff, slightly rattly; it certainly doesn’t sound like anything 21st century, and to look at, well, there’s not much to look at. Open the rear hatch and all you see is a bright red pipe which splits in two, and a whole lot of wiring and metal housings.

Up to around 3500rpm, the turbo lag allows for slow, easy driving and a relaxed attitude. But leave your boot in for a little too long, and all of a sudden, the entire car shifts genres, and you’re in a parallel universe. There's 720hp pushing through just the two rear wheels and the flat six starts to growl, there’s a loud whistle, then a wooshing of air, overlayed by a drivetrain whine. The air rush continues to build, like someone has unleashed the world’s most powerful vacuum cleaner next to your ears.

The pitch increases as the revs do, and as the noise builds, the car hurtles forward in a relentless shove. Your lungs and stomach are compressed as the car’s acceleration envelops you, and the TechArt keeps going until you’ve hit the limiter, at which point you whack in the next gear, and the whole experience builds again.

It’s a surreal feeling, because its acceleration is nowhere close to being linear. While all of this is fine, if not slightly unnerving, in a straight line, in the corners, it’s downright scary. Not that it’s uncontrollable, but you always feel like you’ve got a lion on the end of an elastic dog leash – it’s only a matter of time before it snaps and bites you.

The lesson here is, unless you’ve got balls of steel and a 100-metre wide runway to play with, keep the stability control well and truly on. If you want to exploit its full potential, you’ll have to be a very skilled driver, or have plenty of runoff.

If you do have the room or the inclination, it’s the lowest of gears that you’ll be able to play with. Shod with Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tires (or semi-slicks in layman’s terms) the grip is immense. Once warmed, the tires bite into the tarmac with tenacious attitude, but because the engine is over the rear wheels, it can be provoked into severe understeer with steering inputs which are too quick.

You soon learn to match turn in with throttle application, and rather than throwing it into corners like a front-engined rear-wheel- or all-wheel-drive (which helps the front tyres by hanging all the engine mass over them), you press the pedal and turn in with one fluid movement. Then, you find a brilliantly balanced and devastatingly quick machine.

The other thing that gives the game away is the shift action itself. Nothing could be more perfect. There’s a slight notchy click at the end of a fluid movement to alert you to the fact that the gear has been engaged. But it’s not enough to prevent quick snaps from gate to gate. Fast or slow, you decide the level of attack when changing gears.

Hard braking into corners is also a matter of brake first, turn in, and then get on the gas mid-corner. If you leave your braking too late and try to brake while turning in, the back end push makes the nose run wide and a messy line results. But with carbon ceramic discs, six-pot fronts and four pot rears, the deceleration is magnificently rapid, not to mention stomach-crushing. Forget any notion that carbon ceramics are either on or off, too. The GTstreet RS proves that you can be progressive, or aggressive.

That’s all well and good, but if it decides to take off like an Airbus at decent speeds, then it’s all for nought. Thankfully TechArt’s body kit isn’t for show.

Realizing that the top speed of this thing is around 218mph, TechArt spent many, many hours wind tunnel testing, tweaking, and finalizing the aerodynamic package you see here.

An extra 10kg of downforce on each axle over the standard GT2 at 95mph, and steadily increases thereafter. The nose has been extended, and includes a new carbon splitter, as well as an open bonnet leading edge, which forces the air into the bumper and up over the car. Combine that with the side diffusers on the bumper and downforce is not only increased, but also directed to the right places, as well as cooling the car more efficiently.
Side skirts and a larger rear wing round out the aero-pack. But inside, the modifications also continue. The seatbelts are color matched to stitching elsewhere inside the car, lifting its ambiance above something more than the sodden, grey, rainy-day look of the original. TechArt badging on the steering wheel and new instrument faces complete the transformation from mental GT2 to diabolically insane GTstreet RS.

As far as a package goes, the TechArt GTstreet RS comes pretty close to being perfect. Except for the fact that you’ve got to be very wary of its sideways snap under acceleration, it’s as easy (or hard) to drive as you like. The stability control takes care of any lateral movement, and when it does intervene, it’s never stomping on your fun, but gently encouraging you to not be such a hooligan.

With performance figures to rival the big boys, the GTstreet RS is a formidable machine. 0-60mph in 3.3 seconds is not to be sneezed at, and topping out at beyond 215mph, it’s not what you’d call lazy.

As far as enhancement goes, there's not many tuners which apply the same level of detail that TechArt does. Because the packages are so complete, you feel as if it's a whole new car. Which, basically, it is.

Porsche makes some damn fine cars, but just as Behringer wanted, they can be made even better.

 

That thing is MEAN!

 

That`s my all time best Tuner Pcar...
and he got to haul ass around track in it!!Damn!
Thanks for the great review!!

 

That is one crazy looking GT car

 

Porsche = my fav car company
TechArt = my fav tuner
Germany = my fav country
White = my fav color for a sports car

Doesnt get much better for me than this. Leonburg is a cool spot and TECHART is amazing in person. If this car was there when i visited i would prally STILL be there looking at it

Great post DJ!

 

not only crazy looking,..it`s the fastest car tested by Sportauto around their test track
and it`s at the top in many other disciplines as well!!

 

We didn't get our hands on the latest one for this test but Karl still reported he was smiling like mad after this test!

 

NIce read thanks guys. This is some beast!

 

sick ride

 

very nice.. not a big fan of the wing but everything is perfect