The Porsche Water Cooled era is attributed to the 996 cars of post 1998, but in reality, it started way before the road cars made the ‘big leap’. For at least 30 years prior, Porsche, in true Porsche fashion, had been testing various forms of water cooling in the greatest way possible; Le Mans 24Hr. Combinations of air and water cooling were finally merged, into plain old “wasser” cooling in the mighty 962 era. For all of our love, for all things “luft” cooled, Porsche conceded in the late 80’s that wasser was how you efficiently keep 600Hp cool for 24hrs of abuse. It was the rigours of the “ultimate test”, the Le Mans 24Hr that forced Porsche’s hand and created the start of a new, exciting and successful era.
The basis of all the various RS, RSR’s, Supercups etc, for that successful era was “GT3 Cup”, to use its correct title, of which the road going 996 GT3 homologated. Hand built by Weissach; a batch of production 911 bodyshells would go to Matter, where a cage would be welded in and unnecessary brackets removed. The shell would then head back to Stuttgart for painting, then back to Weissach for final assembly. The engine used to power the GT3 cup was an enlarged, naturally aspirated variant of the Le Mans winning 911 GT1, designed by Hans Mezger. Combined with a tweaked G50 gearbox, sourced from the 993 GT2 and a suspension system very similar to the road going GT3, but with stiffer springs and custom Bilstein dampers.
The 2003 championship winning GT3 Cup we have for sale is a 2003 variant, which featured a host or GT3 RS type modifications, including a refined, more powerful variant of the 3.6 Mezger engine, putting out an impressive 390 Hp and 390 Nm. The 2003 and 2004 MY’s were also mildly tweaked in liquid capacities and cooling, to allow owners the option of entering the cars into endurance races, like the extremely popular VLN Nurburgring 24Hr and the Bathurst 24Hr. Weighing in at a scant 1150Kg, with the uprated power, tweaked gear ratio’s and factory homologated to compete in both the Carrera Cup and endurance racing, the 996 GT3 Cup was applauded by competitors and media globally. Indeed, talk to any competitor from that era and the performance of the gated manual GT3 Cup is lauded for its user-friendly, but exciting nature at 9/10ths and technical prowess needed to maintain pace at 10/10th’s, in comparison to the later sequential and “Flappy-Paddle” only variants.
Along with the 2003-04 MY multi-use capabilities, our car has an entirely unique and impressive race history, with the following notes expertly compiled, by fellow enthusiast Aaron Noonan:
Driven by Jim Richards to win the inaugural Porsche Carrera Cup Australia championship in 2003.
– Driven by Jim in 10 events that year – 1 non-championship at Albert Park (the car’s racing debut) and 9 championship rounds.
– Won the inaugural championship round of Porsche Carrera Cup Australia at Phillip Island in April 2003.
– Won 6 of the 9 rounds held that year – Phillip Island, Eastern Creek, Queensland Raceway, Sandown, Bathurst, Gold Coast.
– It’s the equal most round wins in a season of PCCA, Jim was matched, but not beaten, in later seasons by Alex Davison (2004), Fabian Coulthard (2005) and Craig Baird (2008).
– Finished on the podium in all 9 rounds held in 2003 – in addition to the round wins he finished runner-up at Winton, Hidden Valley and the Eastern Creek finale (there were two rounds held at EC in 2003).
– It remains the record for most podiums in a PCCA season and likely will stand for a long time, given the championship these days tends to always be 8 rounds!
– Won 20 of the 27 races in the 2003 season, including the first 7 in a row across Phillip Island, Eastern Creek and Winton.
– He won a streak of 8 races in a row covering Sandown, Bathurst and the Gold Coast – that still stands as the streak for most PCCA race wins in a row.
– His wins came at Phillip Island (3), Eastern Creek (3), Winton (1), Hidden Valley (2), Queensland Raceway (3), Sandown (2), Bathurst (3), Gold Coast (3) – 5 rounds where he scored a clean sweep of all race wins in that weekend.
– He won at least one race in 8 of the 9 rounds held that year – the only round where he didn’t win a race was the Eastern Creek final round.
– Set fastest lap in 13 of the 27 races held that year.
– Scored 7 of the 9 pole positions in the 2003 championship – he took pole at Phillip Island, Winton, Hidden Valley, QLD Raceway, Sandown, Bathurst and Gold Coast.
It remains the record for most poles in a PCCA season.
– He took six poles in a row covering Rd 3 at Winton through to and including Rd 8 on the Gold Coast. It took until 2016 for Matt Campbell to break this record and score 7 poles in a row that season.
– Jim won the championship with 1475 points to Marcus Marshall’s 1194 and Peter Fitzgerald’s 1050.
This is a unique opportunity to buy a factory-built racing Porsche, owned and raced by the great Jim Richards. It’s championship winning year, contains that all important inaugural R1 win and other records that are likely to never be beaten. To be able to purchase a Jim Richards icon, at a relatively low price-point is very unique. If you were to buy this and enjoy it at club race, sprint and hill-climbs, you could easily envision experiencing the very real joy of driving a great chassis fast and then enjoying reaping a financial return at some time in the distant future. Who knows, you might even get a chance to meet Jim himself and from my perspective, he is one hero you do want to meet; Lovely guy from a great family.
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