Is Porsche the "Benchmark" for all Other Super-Cars?

Last week we had posted an article regarding a road test of the new Nissan GT-R, its performance and the fact that they tested it against a Porsche 997 Twin Turbo. Since then, there has been an interesting thread on Rennlist debating a video of Nissan GT-R vs. a Porsche 997 Twin Turbo. At the heart of the debate is the question “was the video real or was it staged to make the Nissan look like the better car”? You can see the video below and judge for yourself. The narration is in Japanese, but you can easily tell that the Porsche 997 is struggling to make its way around the track. In my opinion this is definitely a staged event as these are “professional” drivers. Even as a total racing neophite, I can see that the lines chosen by the 997 driver are all wrong and that as a result the cars do not seem to be evenly matched.

While the opinion of most on Rennlist is bound to be Porsche biased, most members offer insightful and technical details to back-up their claims and opinions that the race was “fixed”. There is even an informal poll asking readers/video viewers their opinion on the results of the race, specifically, “Was the GT-R quicker?”. At the time of preparing this post, 73 people had voted with over 50% of the opinion that the “whole race was a joke – it was obivous the Porsche was treated really bad to make it look slow”. Surprising to me was the fact that 13 people (almost 18%) voted “Yes, it was quicker – the GT-R is a quicker car” (and this is on a decidely Porsche friendly site, maybe the most Porsche friendly site on the web).

If you are interested you can read through the entire thread and view the results of the poll on Rennlist. I’ll put a link to it below. It is filled with a combination of strong opinions and very technical racing details regarding choosing the right line, tire selection on both cars, true horsepower calculations, etc.

What I find interesting and the reason for this post is that more and more it seems that Porsche is the brand and the standard that all others compare themselves. Is it because Porsche cars are such an accessible and user friendly “super-car”? Is it the 60+ years of racing heritage and experience? Is it the timeless design, functionality and pure driveablitity that has kept the 911 an icon for the ages? I think it’s a combination of all this and more. Every time I see another “super-car” compare itself to a Porsche it simply reinforces my choice of Porsche as the superior brand.

Do you agree with our thoughts on Porsche as the benchmark? Yes or no, please let us know.

Here’s the link to the Rennlist discussion mentioned above.