by JAMES TAYLOR
STEAM RISES FROM THE GT3 RS’S NOSE-MOUNTED radiator. Its front tyres tip-toe a little further into the flood, like a rhino testing the ground at a watering hole. The water rises further, perilously approaching the front axle line. Huddled inside the car following the RS’s cloud-skimming rear wing, I see its brake lights daub red reflections onto the deepening water below, and then the reversing lights wink on, shining bright in the early morning gloom. Looks like we’re going to need to turn around.
It’s day one of eCoty 2023, sandwiched between the aftermath of Storm Babet and the rapid approach of Storm Ciarán. The next five days will see us flit north and south of Hadrian’s Wall, from the Scottish Lowlands to the North Pennines and the Peak District, chasing a watery sun around northern Britain.
Right now, Google Maps is in a particularly mischievous mood and has sent the convoy-leading Porsche down a narrow network of lanes, dipping over (and under) the heightened water table. While the nine-car, £1.4m, 4615bhp convoy commits to a combined who-knows-how-many-points-turn to reroute around this flooded road, its array of colours makes quite a sight: lustrous blue McLaren, nuclear orange Lamborghini, carbon-clad Alpine, warm green Aston Martin and friends, all fringed by cascading autumn leaves. eCoty 2023 is a technicolour test, in more ways than one.
I’m secretly happy to be in the brightest car of the bunch: the other 911, the Carrera T, in Racing Yellow with black decals striped along its sills like Bruce Lee’s tracksuit. Not because of the colour scheme but because in these conditions it’s an easy car to build a rapport with, feeling like an old friend after just a few miles.
It’s apparently a concerned friend, too: a message on the 911 T’s instrument panel flashes up, urging ‘Caution: please adapt driving style; switch on Wet mode’. Now that we’ve backtracked to wider, less waterlogged roads, however, the Pirelli P Zero tyres are finding plenty of front-end grip, while rear traction, helped by the 3-litre flat-six being slung over the axle, is more than strong enough to keep the little drive-mode clickwheel lodged in Sport Plus for now. I need to as well, to keep up.
Why two 911s in the same test? Partly because actually buying a not-officially-sold-out-but-might-as-well-be GT3 RS is a tricky matter between you, your Porsche dealer, a prospector’s used market and/or the devil, and because its road capability is still a partially unknown quantity. The 992
