Porsche Carrera GT

The car joined only its second and current California-based owner in 2007, who has since continued the careful enjoyment and meticulous maintenance of the Carrera GT over their 16 years of ownership. In their care, the car was treated to no fewer than three major engine-out services – the first in July 2008 at 10,884 miles which included a clutch replacement, and again in October 2014 at 14,053 miles – both conducted at Carlsen Porsche in Redwood City, California.

Porsche Monterey in Seaside, California performed its third and most recent major engine-out service in March 2022. Not all Carrera GTs have received this service once, let alone three times, but it is unsurprising, judging by the fastidious nature of the owner, that he should follow Porsche’s special Carrera GT maintenance schedule to the letter. This major service included the replacement of large ticket items such as spark plugs and ignition coils, camshafts, belts, and a comprehensive fluid flush. Additional work performed during this major service included the replacement of the air filters, performing a valve adjustment, mounting four new Michelin Pilot Sport tires, and a battery replacement. It should be noted that battery replacement is not a trivial service item for a Carrera GT and quite an involved process. In keeping with the design of a supercar it is placed low, in front of the right rear wheel in a location difficult to access by anyone without specialized technical knowledge. The total invoiced amount for the comprehensive major service and additional items completed came to just over $41,000 and it should be noted that the car has accrued fewer than 150 miles since.

Created by specialist teams with a narrow focus and cloaked in secrecy, with little interference from the corner offices, the Porsche Carrera GT is an exquisite example of race-honed engineering brought to life on the road. With a high-revving V10 mated to a six-speed manual transmission, a removable hardtop, and excellent driving dynamics, few supercars offer the level of driver involvement and performance available in a Carrera GT. Offered with 16,765 miles at the time of cataloging and recently benefitting from a full XPEL paint protection film in December 2022, this example has been maintained at the highest level and, as such, is primed for countless more miles of guilt-free enjoyment.

To visitors of the 2000 Paris Motor Show, Porsche’s streamlined Carrera GT concept penned by Grant Larson might have seemed as if it were pulled straight out of the future, with its muscular rear deck and low-mounted 5.5-liter V10 engine. Yet somewhat surprisingly, the internally-dubbed “Super Car Millenium” and its production variant owed its conception to a still-born Le Mans Prototype project dating back to 1998. In fact, the engine that powered the unraced LMP2000 had its origins almost a decade earlier in Formula One with the then newly-formed Arrows Footwork team. Porsche supplied 3.5-liter V12 engines for six rounds of the 1991 season before poor reliability brought the program to an early end. Undeterred, the engineers in Zuffenhausen pursued the development of a 3.5-liter V10 replacement, which was ultimately revived by the production department and deemed suitable for the audacious mid-engined Carrera GT concept.

Delivering to customers in early 2004, the Carrera GT earned universal praise from the motoring press and Porsche devotees alike for its rigid chassis design, analog driving dynamics, and its gem of a 5.7-liter V10. The six-speed transmission developed especially for the Carrera GT featured a PCCC (Porsche Ceramic Composite Clutch) and delivered satisfying manual gear changes via a beech wood shift knob. Once again drawing on their race-bred innovations, Porsche bestowed the Carrera GT with a carbon fiber monocoque and subframe, offering unrivaled rigidity and weight savings for a 3,146-pound total. At the heart of this ultralight package was a high-revving all-aluminum V10 producing 605-horsepower and 435 lb-ft of torque. Its aluminum pistons, titanium connecting rods, and forged crankshaft contributed to its low rotational mass and smooth accumulation of revs – instantly teleporting the driver to its 8,000-rpm power peak.

Flexible, vibration-absorbing engine mounts isolated the driver in a luxurious leather-trimmed cabin, appointed with standard air conditioning, navigation, and a Bose sound system. Alternatively, the two carbon fiber roof panels are easily removed to take full advantage of the V10’s glorious soundtrack, with Car & Driver describing it this way in their test: “That free-revving engine is unlike anything else we’ve ever sampled. It’s loud, blowing 93 decibels on our sound meter during a full-throttle blast, but the shriek is the kind that prickles your body hair.”