Porsche Taycan Turbo GT Goes Even Harder With Aggressive Manthey Racing Upgrades

Miami Herald

19 hours ago

Our spies are always camped at the Nürburgring Nordschleife during industry testing days, and their latest sighting is of a Porsche Taycan Turbo GT with several additions that appear to come straight out of the Manthey Racing playbook. For the record, the $230,000+ Taycan Turbo GT with the no-cost Weissach Package is already an exceptionally hardcore electric sedan with 1,019 horsepower and no rear seats, and independent testing has seen 0-60 mph sprints completed in as little as 1.89 seconds.
Porsche set a Nürburgring time of 7:07.55 with its most hardcore Taycan last year, breaking records as the fastest series-production electric car and the fastest four-door of any kind on the track, but then the Chinese rained on Porsche's parade, hard, and this new prototype, expected to cost around $300k in production form, seems like Germany's retort.
Launched earlier this year with a starting price approximate to just $73,000, the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra offers 1,527 hp and similar 0-60 times. A more powerful, quicker accelerating, cheaper EV might not seem like a big deal, but ever-improving Chinese cars have been hurting Porsche's market share in the region, and with the SU7 Ultra beating the Taycan Turbo GT's time by lapping the Green Hell in just 7:04.95 last month proves that Xiaomi's lower asking price is not necessarily evidence of a lesser product.
With Manthey Racing upgrades, Porsche will surely take a crack at reclaiming the record. We doubt there's much weight that can be shed here, but Manthey's focus is predominantly on aerodynamic enhancements, and these photos show several elements that are similar to those seen on the Porsche-owned tuner's GT3 RS kit.
At the front, the lower side intake scoops have lost their grilles, and the middle of the front fascia is no longer a closed panel. However, the side intakes just below the headlights, which cool the brakes, have been closed up. The outer extremities of the front fascia have gained canards for additional downforce, while the lower splitter seems sharper and is no longer connected to the winglets that form air curtains over the wheels. This is because the Manthey kit will widen the car with bulging arches, which, at the front, are vented and feature a floating air guide to smooth turbulent air from behind the front tires. Also noteworthy is that the hood has vents aligned with the center of the arches.
The side skirts don't appear to have changed much, if at all, as is the case with the rear wing. The rear wheels, though, have gained Manthey's trademark aero covers with another floating air guide, and the lower half of the rear fascia is far more aggressive, with a simply massive diffuser that wouldn't look out of place on the Le Mans grid. All in all, this looks mighty, and our spies report that racing driver Lars Kern was at the helm. He's the man who has set numerous Nürburgring Nordschleife lap records for Porsche, so it's quite possible that he and the automaker are preparing to go for gold again.
But the Chinese won't be easy to beat, even after all this. Last month, a modified version of the SU7 Ultra lapped the almost-13-mile course in just 6:46.87, some 8 seconds quicker than a GT2 RS with the Manthey Racing kit, and not far behind the outright record-holder, the Mercedes-AMG ONE (6:29).
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