Once again to sunny Portimao to test the new Porsche Cayman GT4. People have been waiting for this car for some time.

There are two ways to approach the fastest factory produced Range-Rover ever to roll out of Solihull. You can imagine that you are the intended buyer of this £93,450 162mph monster – place yourself in their position and try to alter your frame of reference to include what they might be looking for a in a car of this type. Or you can judge it purely on its own merits, against its peers and, perhaps more tellingly, against other Land Rover products.

There is very little that isn’t impressive about this first SVR branded product. It sits 8mm lower than the standard V8 supercharged RRS, it has the 550hp/501lb ft engine straight from the F-Type R (mapped the same under full power, with changes for part throttle action), new bodywork, funky bucket seats and switchable exhaust that makes some of the naughtiest parping sounds ever heard in a brisk truck.

The air suspension has been recalibrated to be between 8 and 10% stiffer than the standard car, 21-inch wheels are standard, but most customers have gone for the optional 22-inchers, which include small extension spats to cover the extra width of the 295 section rubber. It’s worth noting that the standard 21in wheel is a normal Land Rover M&S tyre, whereas the 22in is a special high performance item developed for this car.

This is a very fast truck indeed – immediately up there with the Cayenne Turbos and BMW X5Ms, by delivering speed that really shouldn’t be possible in something so large. The motor pulls from zip and keeps pulling into the sixes, the noise with the exhaust in silly mode is pretty extreme and the handling – well, that’s class leading for this type of vehicle.

Despite the wide tracks and rubber, the SVR does a much better job of not tramlining or being disturbed by A and B road cambers and crowns than its rivals – for UK buyers that’s a big advantage. It never feels quite as big as it is too, which is a testament to its agility and recalibrated steering. Initially I thought it turned too quickly, but you soon get used to the quite un-SUV way in which it darts into corners.

And then there’s the whole image thing – and this is where I have to imagine the end user of such a vehicle, because I’m not one of them. To me this is quite an eye-full, and I’d feel a little self-conscious in it (yes, that coming from a 512 TR driver), but I have no doubt that to the people that matter, it looks perfect. It sits squat, wide and punchy. And of course the base RRS is a great looking machine anyway.

Ah yes, the base RRS V8 Supercharged. This vehicle needs a mention because for me it plays both a supporting and mildly destabilising role in the SVR’s existence. Being such an excellent base vehicle it offered the SVR team a superb foundation, but of course it has also meant that eeking out noticeable differences between the two has been much harder. As an example of this, the brakes on the SVR are identical to the V8’s – albeit with extra cooling. That’s unusual on a range-topper of this type. Yes, the SVR is faster and more urgent, but then it is more raucous. It rolls less and can out-corner the base V8, but it doesn’t ride as well and anyone who wants to reach the limits of adhesion in either car on the public road needs sectioning.

We were taken on a small off-road course, still using the large 22-inch performance tyres, and the SVR’s transition from M5-baiter to mud-plodder was remarkable in the extreme. This remains a proper Land Rover and it will go places its on-road performance suggest it shouldn’t.

The new bucket-style seats are excellent, and the drivers’ one adjusts nice and low, which is good. The cabin is mostly unchanged though, apart from some different trim, and I’d have expected some funky SVR branded clock faces to keep the punters happy.

I think Land Rover will sell as many of these as they can build. Global sporty-SUV sales continue to defy flat-earthers like me who struggle to see the point, and this SVR will continue the trend. Much I as I enjoyed it and thought it great fun, the SVR really just served to remind me how special the base V8 RRS is. Not much slower, more comfortable and almost invisible by comparison – and available with the clever 7-seat option that cannot be specified on this new model. I’d take one over this car, but suspect I might be in the minority.

The third biggest loser in this sad saga of Top Gear is the wider car media, and the business that surrounds it. Of course the first is the vast fan base that has followed the show for many years. The second, assuming the brand struggles to survive, is the team who work on it - and I can’t imagine how they feel right now. But sitting here it strikes me that so many people also engaged in this business of writing or making films about cars haven’t stopped to understand just what Top Gear did for all us ordinary folk. Nor what it did for the car industry in general.

Top Gear has acted like some vast, entirely free marketing service for all of us. I have always viewed it as the primary sales funnel for my videos, and the analytics support the theory: 350 million people watch the three boys doing their thing on a Sunday night and a very small percentage think they might want to know a bit more about the car featured that week, and so they type the car’s name into YouTube and they might just happen across one of our low-budget productions. A very small percentage of 350 million is still a very large number.

I’m like that little, nagging fish constantly nibbling a whale shark’s barnacles. I’m a TG parasite, and it’s worked bloody well for me up to now.

More importantly Jeremy, James and Richard have not just maintained the public’s love affair with the motor car, they’ve grown it – a feat I’d have thought impossible ten years ago in the face of political and environmental pressures. The conventional car print media – the one I have always been a part of – has failed in many ways with dwindling circulations and diminished influence, but its biggest crime is a total failure to connect with a younger audience. Thankfully for all of us, Top Gear’s role as compulsory Sunday night family viewing has excited a whole new generation of youngsters to not only be interested in cars, but to love cars. And for that I think it has already shaped the car industry as we currently know it, and how it will be in the future.

So on a selfish, professional level, I’m gutted TG is in a state of flux because I think fewer people will now watch my videos.

As for the show? My kids will miss it and I’ll miss watching it with them. Of course it wasn’t intended to enlighten geeks like me, but it certainly entertained me almost all of the time and as someone who spends much of his time standing in front of a camera and then watching a bloke called Neil turn it into a beautiful film, I can’t tell you how much respect I have for the three presenters’ abilities or the team of people who make the show.

Last year, when we filmed the McLaren P1 video at Yas Marina, TG was there patiently waiting to film a 918 which was still being held by customs. We had the track from about 9 pm to midnight and handed over the track to Richard and the TG crew who worked through the night until sun-rise to produce that beautiful film. Yes, they have budget, but **** me they work hard. I hadn’t quite realized how much effort they put in until that point.

And I cannot say how thankful I am that it kind of became less about cars over time because in doing so it gave my little show the oxygen to survive. The only creative rule myself and Neil have ever consistently adhered to is to never try and be TG. Never try to be too funny. Don’t go on adventures. Don’t do anything that could usher you into direct comparison with TG because you will automatically look ****.

And as TG became more entertainment based, it kind of allowed us to pursue the genre of being geeks and smoking tires and doing stuff on a shoestring and having massive fun putting it all together. Without that shift, I wouldn’t have survived.

Does TG work without Jeremy? Probably not. Does it work without Richard and James too – absolutely not. I think the BBC would be completely mad to try and maintain the same format with three new people, but I don’t doubt it will try. In the UK people are citing the example of a show called ‘Have I got News for you’ which lost its anchor, Angus Deayton, through some scandal, was then expected to die an immediate death, but which has flourished with a series of temporary guest hosts for a decade now – one of them, ironically, being Jeremy Clarkson.

But I think the TG format is much more invested in Jeremy, James and Richard than HIGNFY ever was Angus Deayton.

I genuinely think that if James and Richard choose not to continue then the format has to die with them. No one can ever do with it what they have, because they defined it in the first place.

What comes next? I have no idea. I’ve always struggled to understand how Jeremy could do his thing on a commercially-funded channel. I suppose therein lies the crazy paradox at the center of this whole episode. Jeremy and his pal Andy Wilman turned a car program into a mouthpiece for an entire tranche of middle England fed-up with the nanny state and in search of simple entertainment, but the only place it could flourish was within a quasi-state-funded broadcaster that didn’t have to answer to advertisers, but which is fundamentally left-leaning and against the type of personality Jeremy represents. It would be easy to conclude that they couldn’t live with each other, and that they won’t be able to live without each other.

I don’t think it’ll end like that. I suspect TG will continue on the BBC, and it might well succeed. But much more interesting is where the three chaps who’ve redefined the space will end up. We probably won’t have to wait too long to find out.

I suppose this epoch had to end at some point. The manner in which it might well have ended is regrettable, and I want to remind everyone that there are many talented people who work on all the TG brands – the telly crew, the magazine, the events and much besides – who must be ****ting themselves right now, and I think we should spare a thought for them.

Winter time, wet roads and nearly 1000hp. Time to revisit one of the best cars of 2014.

I cannot think of a single area of objective performance in which the Maserati Ghibli betters its obvious German rivals. I suppose it can be quite fast in a straight line, but even then for similar outlay one can buy something from M or AMG that would leave the Masterati scratching its head. So why would I rather live with a Ghibli – an inferior product – to many of its more talented rivals?

Because I’m growing a little tired of German dominance.

Please don’t mistake that for some rank xenophobia, it isn’t meant to be, but the financial and technical advantage offered by the Big Three is such that even a well-funded Jaguar is struggling to keep pace, so what the hell is Maserati supposed to do?

Take a step back and be cool. And with the Ghibli this strategy has worked.

How do we respond to our cars? The Ghibli questions that man-machine relationship by pandering to emotions that many of us feel we should be immune to – chief among them vanity. I am no hipster and, despite my big mouth, actually don’t enjoy attention that much, but the public response to the Ghibli is almost enough to justify buying one.

You arrive at a journey’s end a little bit annoyed that the soft damper setting lacks control, reach the conclusion that the stiff one was calibrated to increase chiropractic work and that the gear-selector was rejected by the Krypton Factor for being too hard to fathom. And then you climb out and people smile at you. They stop and look at the shapes and the front grille and they nod in appreciation at this anomalous, non-Teutonic lump and you are then dragged helplessly into the world of subjective appeal. At which point, like me, you are potentially ensnared by the Ghibli’s charms.

The Ghibli is a big, wide machine. It weighs a full 1800kg dry and so it needs the S model’s 404hp and 406lb ft to make it go the way you’d expect a Maserati to go. Throttle response is okay, the boost arrives quite quickly and, with the Sport button pushed, the exhaust note is very cheeky indeed. The only problem being that the same mode causes the transmission to go all Sportivo and hold on to gears and generally be a pain. Luckily the dampers can still be in the softest setting regardless. The stiff mode is not good for UK work.

Driven quickly, the car’s dynamics are average to not-bad. The rear axle location feels weak at times, the structure can feel less solid that some rivals and the brakes don’t like extended punishment. If I was writing the What Car? summary now I’d be deliberating over whether it was a two or three star car on the five star scale. This should automatically mean avoiding it in favour of more talented opposition.

But the cabin has some lovely touches beyond some of the ropey Chrysler-sourced switches. For the first time in a modern Maserati you can sit low enough with the steering wheel perfectly placed. The steering is actually the one area where the Ghibli can claim to match the Germans – it’s an easy car to place despite its girth and the weighting is well-judged.

Some of the plastics are a little low-rent, the infotainment system isn’t as swish as an Audi’s and, look, I could go on like this for ages. You know it’s not as objectively talented as the aforementioned, but does that really matter?

Ask yourself, as I did, how many of its shortcomings actually make for an unpleasant everyday driving experience. Apart from the gear-selector, there’s nothing. It even has a big 80-litre tank, which I’d take over a 14% increase in door-trim quality any day of the week.

I just felt good driving this car. I smiled, people smiled at me and the motoring world needs choices beyond the obvious. Every time you walk back up to it and pull the door handle you are reminded that there are certain emotions only Italian cars can invoke in us, and the Ghibli remains true to that heritage.

If you’re in the market for a fast saloon, please go and try one. Not for an hour, but for a weekend. I suspect you might like it more than you expected to.

A few clips to give you a flavour of the full video which will air next week.

The stunning little 570S made its International debut at the New York show. No one's driven it yet, but we had there chance to chat with Chris Goodwin about the car.

The first of two films from the 73rd Goodwood Members Meeting. Featuring assorted amazing machines and a race in a 1965 Porsche 911! What a superb race meeting.

It is very rare for a motor car not to be profoundly ruined by the removal of its roof. It is for this reason alone that I only tend to like open top cars that were designed that way in the first place, like the Lotus Elise; or ones which don’t rely on a roof for structural stiffness, like the McLaren 650S.

According to this reasoning, the Ferrari 458 Speciale Aperta should be a crock of old nonsense. Quite why anyone would want to make a Speciale more bendy and less competent in the interests of gaining a sun-tan should be beyond comprehension, but that stance doesn’t take into account the weird situation regarding the 458 Spider.

Obviously the Spider is the open roof version of the Italia, and it is in many ways a more pleasant road car than the Italia. The extra flex in the bodyshell means less spring rate and therefore greater compliance. The Spider rides bumps better and over tricky roads is probably the quicker car, because it isn’t being deflected and the driver isn’t forced into making so many small steering corrections.

There is a real skill to matching the spring and damper rates of a convertible to its body flex, and the 458 Spider is one of the best. So I should have had high hopes for the Aperta. But, that would mean not being horrified at the concept of an open top version of a car that trades on being the sharpest, most dynamic, production Ferrari. Isn’t it just the most appalling piece of cynical revenue generation, trading on a silly marketplace filled with tasteless people who don’t know better?

I was thinking, and luckily not saying aloud, this when a very kind man offered to let me drive one of the few Apertas in the UK. This was a confusing offer because, on the one hand I didn’t want to be rude about the conceptual thinking underpinning his new pride-and-joy, but I was also overjoyed that he had brought the car to a track day! As many of you will be aware, the Aperta is very hot property right now, with cars reportedly selling for upwards of half a million sterling. They are natural garage queens.

I was driving at Castle Combe, which, as many of you will know, is a fearsomely fast and technical circuit, much like Goodwood, and which is one of the few UK tracks to be a very good test of a road car chassis because of the weird undulations and bumps. Again, much like Goodwood.

The weight penalty for the folding roof mechanism is around 50kg, which isn’t too bad considering it’s a metal panel sitting over your head and needs electric motors to operate it. There are no official figures for the loss in twist stiffness, but, where I find the standard Spider’s road manners more pliable than the Italia’s, there is one shortcoming – the steering rack really does shake and shudder. At times it feels like it’s moving around in the car!

Nosing the Aperta out onto the circuit it certainly feels little different to the Speciale – there are no squeaks and groans over the paddock roughage and any fear that the powertrain might feel in any way blunted by the extra weight evaporates the moment you push the long-travel pedal into the bare floor. It might lose a fraction of a second from rest to 125mph, but it’s still crazy fast and, with the traction switched off, it wants to spool-up in second gear.

And the noise is less severe than the hard-top’s. At the risk of sounding a little too mature, I find the Speciale’s exhaust note too loud – it sits in that unfortunate category of being noise for the sake of noise and that’s not a fine attribute. The Aperta has been mildly silenced to protect the hearing of its occupants with the roof down, and that makes it less shouty and, curiously, improves the quality of the noise it emits. This is a very good thing.

As is the chassis – because the same effect of added compliance works in the fastest convertible. The steering rack is far better located than the Spider’s and the car’s ability to keep all four wheels on the ground under hard braking into the bumpy Quarry corner is truly impressive. You can then leave it in fourth, luxuriate in the complete lack of understeer, and feel the rear axle squirm around as you get back on the gas. This, remember, is a middlingly powerful Ferrari, so it has 600hp from a normally aspirated V8, and it makes most racing engines seem lethargic and asthmatic. It is one of the great road motors and deserves celebration.

And it’s at around this point – three corners in – that I must have completely forgotten I was in a convertible with the roof up. I wasn’t cursing the thing, or accusing it of being a poseurs folly. I just drove it as fast as seemed sensible, let it slide around a little and kept thinking to myself that the times it was knocking out would probably make it finish reasonably high up a racing grid. It pulls 160mph into Quarry – that’s outrageous.

The brakes are superb, powerful and without fade, the steering is fast – lifeless, but synapse-accurate, the whole thing just builds rhythm and a sense of confidence I’ve not experienced in many cars around Combe.

And it’s only when we’re wandering back into the pits, and shut down the engine that I look down between the seats and see an extra window button. The electric roof mechanism switch. Truly, I had forgotten that the Aperta was a convertible. Now that maybe because I was wearing a crash helmet, but for feedback and response, it was superb on the track.

I had also forgotten that the owner’s wife was sitting next to me. Luckily she was grinning. Is the Aperta worth the crazy premium? Not if you judge it as the ultimate 458 – but find me another car that drives as well and as fast and with such a sense of joy, with a removable roof for less money. I can’t think of one.

I might even need to re-think my opinion of these convertible things.

The second part of our race weekend at the 73rd Goodwood Members Meeting. It's the Gerry Marshall Trophy and I'm in the JD Classics Rover SD1 with Chris Ward. Let the sliding commence!

Between 140 and 190mph, the M5 30th Anniversary Edition is a confidence trick. The dashboard is familiar Five Series and the spangly plaque reminds you that this is a rather special saloon car, but when your eyeballs are fixed on the horizon as the flick-flick-flick of the white line increases, the driver has no idea that this is a large five-seater. It could be a 911 Turbo, or something even more exotic.

The notion of the Q-car is now so obvious and over-sold that the genre has come full circle. Cars like the M5 no longer secretively lurk on the Autobahns looking to surprise and embarrass Porsches – sportscars simply leap out of the way when an AMG or M car or something similarly capacious, and supposedly ordinary-looking, appears in the mirror. With vast turbocharged power outputs, they now rule these roads.

And they remain magnificent roads. As a demonstration of what a high-quality, high-speed road network should be, the Autobahns are still the best in the world. Not perfect, because nothing ever is, but still mostly a joy for anyone perpetually bemused by the fact that no other government seems willing to acknowledge the huge advances in vehicle performance and safety wrought since the 60s. Every other archaic legal framework has been allowed to progress over time, but not the ability to get somewhere fast.

There are dozens of reasons to like the Autobahn. Among them: the joy of the de-limit sign, the mostly excellent driving standards, the quality of the signage, the cleanliness, the mostly excellent surfaces and of course the fact that, outside of the worst snarl-up areas, you really can get places much, much faster because you can cruise at 130mph.

But the one I often forget is the crucial role it plays in the development of fast cars – in fact make that all cars. The M5 was easily loping along at 140mph following a new C220 diesel and it struck me that if it wasn’t for the existence of a place where you can legally go very fast, car companies wouldn’t bother spending the time or money ensuring they were engineered to do so. In some respects this road network is the justification for the great cars we currently enjoy. It’s why I know that someone from BMW spent many hours driving between 160mph and 190mph and ensuring that the pitch and yaw qualities of the M5’s suspension were consistent and confidence inspiring.

This helps put paid to that terrible British affliction of stating that the fast diesel version is ‘all you’ll ever need’. In the UK, a 535d is probably nearly as brisk as an M5, but on roads where you can accelerate from 75mph to 160mph several times in one journey, there is no substitute for one of the big-bangers. If you commute into town in your M5, you will regularly destroy your weakling co-worker in his smugly-rapid 535d.

The 30th anniversary M5 has arrived with a bit of a whimper for something that has 600hp. It is the ultimate expression of the super-saloon and it is magnificently fast. Stability is supreme at those huge speeds and the ceramic brakes, though needing a big shove to do their best, pull speed from a two-ton lump with some skill.

I suppose it’s fitting that the M5 has ended up being so complete. It began the modern era of the discreet fast saloon car back in 1985, and it has always been the one to beat. My love affair with the current RS6 is well documented, but I completely fell for this car. The only let-down being the matte paintwork which makes it look a little to teenage for something with such mature skills.

And it reminds me what good value early, used versions of the F10 M M5 are these days. Crazy fast, attractive, discreet and with half-decent range, they are some of the best M cars ever built. They are characterful too – but the 30th anniversary edition is even better.

Bentleys should't have stickers and hard suspension. We spoil some tyres investigating whether this car should have been allowed to live.

The 991 GT3 is the ultimate road-going 911. It revs to 9,000rpm and is profoundly exciting. Bearing the GT3 badge also marks it out as the ultimate ‘drivers’ 911 – or does it? Because the GT3 is, in the eyes of many, missing a key component required by the arbiters of what makes a great drivers’ car – a manual gearchange.

The most powerful, exciting, 911 you can now buy with a manual gearbox is something called a GTS, and, in the interests of research, I am going to be driving one for six months. I am very excited about this.

And also feeling a little bit humble. Because it now dawns on me that I have of late become a 911 snob. Such is the interest surrounding the more exotic GT3, RS and Turbo models and, if I’m being brutally honest, so much greater are the YouTube views, that I haven’t given the lesser 991 models a second thought in quite a while.

The GTS is effectively a Carrera S with the kitchen sink thrown at it. It gets the wider body and tracks of the Carrera 4, the optional 30hp power kit, giving a total of 430hp, and the Sports Chrono Plus package. This gives a switchable sports exhaust, two-way adjustable dampers and torque vectoring limited slip differential. Exclusive to the GTS is a 10mm drop in ride height.

Oh, and there is a manual gearbox option, which is the bit that really interests me. The last three-pedal car I used as a daily was back in 2007, a BMW M3. I am a strong advocate of the automatic transmission for everyday use, but I’ve also been craving a manual 911 experience for some time.

In many ways the GTS is being sold as the ultimate road-specification 911. It has no track-pretensions. There are mildly bolstered sports seats inside, heaps of Alcantara and, on ‘my’ car, loads of carbon. The other main option is the Sport Design package, which gives a new nose treatment and the little ducktail spoiler. I was a little worried about this last detail because I tend to like my ‘normal’ 911s to maintain that clean lozenge profile, but it does look really rather natty.

The driving experience is already intoxicating. The motor may not be as crazy at the GT3s, but from 4500rpm it pulls very, very hard and the intake noise is captivating. I’d forgotten how special the base 9A1 motor has become. For noise, response and sheer urge it is still one of the great road car engines.

And in the GTS you get to access it the way you see fit – using a lever and three pedals. The shift is now much better than earlier versions of the 7-speeder, even if the 5th-6th-7th relationship doesn’t quite feel entirely natural. I’m reveling it being in a manual again, I love the fact that car is only as good as my inputs – and I refuse to use the automatic blipping software that cuts-in when you’re in Sports mode!

The ride is pretty firm and road noise is quite pronounced – so it’s a normal 911 in those respects. The wider bodywork isn’t ideal for UK roads and the electric steering is miles, miles more communicative than in the last 991 I drove. I will investigate whether this is a software change or just a quirk of the wider chassis.

Every morning I wake up and there’s a 911 waiting for me to drive. If you love cars, there are few better things than that.

Many more updates to follow.

Off to the Italian hills in a perfect 212 Export Barchetta by Touring. Listen, watch and prepare to fall in love.

The specification of the new Porsche 911 GT3 RS has been known for some time, but for those of you who struggle to retain numbers, here are the basics once more.

Using the wider, heavier body from the turbo, the RS still manages to be 10kg lighter than the narrower, much smaller-wheeled 991 GT3. It manages this by way of a magnesium roof (first seen in the 997 Hybrid racer of 2010) and carbonfibre front wings, bonnet and rear deck lid. Owners can go lighter still by deleting the hi-fi, buying a lithium battery and taking the fixed-back carbon seats. Optional carbon ceramic brakes will shave weight too. How many of these options are needed to hit the claimed 1,420kg I do not know, but I can tell you that not since the 1967 911 R has a road going Porsche been treated to such extreme weight-saving measures.

The new engine displaces four litres and produces 500hp at 8,250rpm and 339lb ft at 6,250. A new crankshaft and intake system make it a quite different motor to the 3.8 in the ‘normal’ GT3. Claimed performance is very brisk and delivered through a standard dual-clutch transmission, which has slightly different ratios to accommodate the huge 21-inch rear wheels. Zero to 60mph takes 3.1sec, 100 is dispatched in 7.1sec and 125mph flashes by in 10.9sec. Like me, you probably never thought a normally aspirated 911 could produce such numbers. Top speed is 193mph, which is impressive given how much wing the RS presents.

The aero package is extreme; it’s the single biggest area of performance improvement over the 997 machines, and it has been achieved through good old wings ‘n splitters. That big chin works in conjunction with the front wing vents to produce 30 percent more front axle downforce, and the rear wing is simply huge for a production machine. Porsche claims it has twice the downforce of the old RS, which is one of those throwaway claims I’m loathed to repeat here, but I tend to judge such things on how be-winged a car looks, and the RS does appear to have taken a wrong turn from a Blancpain race.

And then you drive it on the road and realise that Porsche no longer makes cars that cannot behave on the public highway. For the first few minutes the RS’s good manners serve as a profound disappointment because you’ve read about the 500hp and the lightweight everything and you’ve seen the preposterous wings and, well, it doesn’t seem much more hardcore than the 991 GTS I left at the airport. In fact – that at least had three pedals.

The first time you give the car space it makes you feel very guilty for ever doubting it. People familiar with this type of machine will come away with two immediate impressions – the first is the level of grip across both axles. The 911 GT3 RS uses a 265 section front tyre, so wide it actually caused several headaches during approval, and that, coupled with the 991’s longer wheelbase, means it both turns and maintains front axle grip in a way no 911 has before. The front Michelin Cup 2 rubber has a field day. At the rear there’s a 325 section, 21 inch equivalent – it is so sticky that on the road, dare I say it, the car feels almost over-tyred. In the dry you can ping from quite tight second gear turns using full throttle.

The motor is so good that that it slightly defies description. This is the epitome of the normally aspirated flat-six. It works from 2,500rpm to 8,500rpm, it pulls way harder in the mid-range than the 3.8 and it does so with the full panoply of wail, warble and pizazz you would expect. You find yourself snicking up and down the paddles just to hear it make a slightly different noise each time. Making it lug in higher gears from low revs is especially pleasing. Paddles only? Suppose I’ll just have to get over myself. This is the best dual-clutch I’ve driven for speed and response, the paddle clicks are a little shorter than on the GT3 too, but I’d still rather have a manual.

The main downside to the GT3 RS’s superb road manners – it even rides pretty well – is its width. The Turbo body allows for a much more efficient intake set-up, but it also makes the car very wide even on German roads. Back in the UK, this car will make you wince on fast B-roads. And that’s taking into account the big increase in agility afforded by the rear-axle steering it shares with the base GT3. Without that system, the car would feel huge.

It will come as no surprise to learn that it feels even better on track. It’s the front axle that makes you giggle – here at last is a fast 911 that doesn’t want to push the moment you suggest turning into a corner. It simply goes. Entry speeds are way higher than on a 997 generation car. In fact, Porsche claims a sub 7 min 20sec lap of the Nurburgring in this car, which isn’t much quicker than the last 4.0 GT3 RS, but on a conventional circuit I think it would be miles faster.

You can ride up against all the front grip and hold the line, then use those enormous rear tyres, taken without change from the 918, and carry even more speed away from the exit. The bit in between is entirely at the driver’s disposal – with the systems on you can be neat and tidy, with them off you can use that rearward mass to rotate the GT3 RS and pull big, smokey slides. I have driven every fast 911 of note, and the GT3 RS is the most predictable of all on a trailing throttle. You find yourself switching all the electronics off and letting it back itself into second gear turns – and it has a 325 rear!

The GT3 RS test car was running the optional 410/390mm carbon ceramic brakes and they were immense. Pedal feel was strong and it never lengthened – I just couldn’t fathom some of the braking distances from high speed. And the downforce? I was at Weissach, Porsche’s test track, and there just aren’t enough fast turns to give you any real idea of high speed cornering. What I can say is that on the Autobahn the car hit 185mph with some ease, but the next 5 mph were a struggle, and this is a sure sign of real downforce.

Furthermore, it leaves me with a little gap in my knowledge of the new GT3 RS, which means I will be forced to reacquaint myself with it very soon. All in the name of research.

Some people will detest everything this car stands for. Some will dwell on the lack of a manual gearshift. But the unavoidable truth is that; for people who have the resources and inclination to want a car that is equally happy crossing continents as it is lapping at very high speed, the 991 GT3 RS sets new standards.

Lighter than a GT3, with more power, more grip, more aero and more purple. Watch for the T-shirt.