If you have a spare 992.1 Turbo S and about £495,000 in the bank, you can now turn your daily driver Porsche into a Le Mans Hypercar-inspired track monster! The RML Group, celebrating its 40th birthday, recently unveiled the RML P39 40th Special Edition (40SE) as a pretty nice gift to themselves, combining track-munching performance with day-to-day usability. It’s so different compared to a regular Turbo S, you’d be hard-pressed to even notice it underneath! You might have noticed that elongated, widened, lowered full carbon fibre body, inspired by LM Hypercar looks. These also include some aerodynamic improvements, including a huge rear spoiler.
Elsewhere, there’s a ridiculously cool roof air intake and a bunch more active aero bits. There is a bespoke set of racy, lightweight 20-inch and 21-inch forged alloy wheels, front and rear, too. Additionally, you get a wider track both front and rear, as well as an extended wheelbase to afford you more stability and better high-speed handling. Behind those forged alloy wheels, the RML P39 40th Special Edition comes with gargantuan 10-pot 420mm ceramic composite brake discs at the front. Meanwhile, at the back, you then get a set of 4-pot 390mm discs, for maximum stopping power. And, you also get some sweet Ohlins adjustable dampers.
Made To Conquer The Track, Or The Road
Speaking of the suspension, you can fine-tune them further, particularly between different driving modes. In Tour mode, it raises the ride height and relaxes the damping, which should make the RML P39 40th Special Edition a shockingly comfy car for daily driving. On the other hand, in Track mode, you get lower ride height and stiffer damping, great for track days and attacking mountain roads! Of course, I’d be remiss to not mention the number of fettling the boffins over at RML have made with the Turbo S’ powerplant. With the RML P39 40th Special Edition, the highly-strung twin-turbo 6-cylinder engine pumps out a mighty 900bhp.
In addition, you get 1,000Nm of torque, allowing you to sprint from 0 to 60mph in a mere 2.4 seconds. If that’s not mind-blowing enough compared to the regular Turbo S, it’ll go from 0 to 100mph in just 4.5 seconds! Most of these performance upticks are thanks to an updated ECU, upgraded turbos and intercoolers, redesigned manifolds, a high-performance catalytic converter, and a tuned Inconel sports exhaust… Among others. That’s already impressive enough, but you begin to truly notice the gap between the 992.1 Turbo S and the RML P39 40th Special Edition once you take a closer look at what RML’s done with active aero and even a DRS system.
Hypercar Performance And Sharp Looks
The most notable highlight, when it comes to aerodynamics, is the driver-activated DRS (Drag Reduction System), helping you to reduce drag and maximise top speed on the straights. Even the RML P39 40th Special Edition’s chassis has hydraulic actuators to lower the ride height, as this can help with increasing downforce, should you need it. The downforce itself is a gigantic improvement over a regular Turbo S, now producing an eye-watering 662kg of downforce at 150mph. That’s more than four times that of the 992.1 Turbo S, and at 177mph, the RML P39 40th Special Edition could generate an even more awe-inspiring 923kg of downforce.
For now, RML hasn’t yet set a Nürburgring lap time, but their simulations have suggested that the RML P39 40th Special Edition could manage a 6-minute and 45-second lap. This makes it faster than the latest 992 GT3 RS, with its 6-minute and 49.3-second lap. Interestingly, it still has the same MacPherson strut and 5-link suspension set-up – front and rear, respectively – as with the Turbo S. Built at RML Group’s Wellingborough engineering centre, near Silverstone, if you are thinking about getting one, you should hurry, as there will only ever be 10 examples of the RML P39 40th Special Edition made, with tonnes of personalisation options with it.
