A GT2 RS as a base, and not one but two lots of performance focused upgrades – is JCR Developments’s Porsche 911 GT2 RS MR the most extreme 911 out there?
This is a car that comes with a lot of letters and numbers to decode. GT2 RS – that’s the model that’s sat at the top of the 911 range for the 997 and 991 generations; a blend of the track-focused aero and rear-wheel drive of the GT3 RS with an even more pumped-up version of the Turbo’s, erm, turbocharged engine. The 991 version remains the most powerful roadgoing 911 variant ever produced at 691bhp, and for a while held the production car lap record at the Nordschleife, if such a thing matters to you. It is, in short, Plenty of Car.
Next up, MR. This stands for Manthey-Racing, the Nürburgring based racing team and Porsche upgraders who regularly triumph at their local 24-hour race. Their performance kits are for people who feel that, for whatever reason, their GT-badged Porsches are Not Enough Car. They tend to leave the engines alone, concentrating instead on furthering the already extreme aerodynamics and weight-saving measures dreamt up by Weissach.
On this Neptune Blue car, you’ll find certain visual pointers to this kit: the subtle Gurney flap, and the entirely unsubtle aerodiscs and extra-tall rear wing, all in carbon fibre, naturally.
Then there’s JCR. This is the UK-based specialist founded by former teen prodigy Porsche racer, Jonny Cocker. Jonny and his team looked at the GT2 RS, then at the upgrades offered by Manthey, and decided that what was required was Still More Car. To that end, the rear bumper is lifted from the GT2 RS Clubsport racer, which allows for the installation of a prototype Inconel exhaust system.
The chemistry and thermal properties of Inconel are very complex and very boring, but the effects of making an exhaust out of it are not: lots of money spent leads to lots of noise, lots of power and very little weight. It tends to be favoured by F1 teams, so to see it employed in a roadgoing sports car is very special indeed.
This is the undoubted centrepiece of this car, and helps to push it towards a true power figure comfortably north of 700bhp. What all this results in is a machine that teases the outer limits of what can be extracted from a road-legal 911, and one that’s proving the worth of its JCR-developed parts with a heavy track day schedule. It is, undoubtedly, A Lot of Car.
And yet, none of this can eclipse the unbridled coolness of a pair of houndstooth seat inserts. Such is the 911’s way.
