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Technology standard on an $18,000 Kia Picanto is soon to be made available on Porsche's sharpest sports cars will keep them in Australian showrooms.
The near-term future of the Porsche 911 GT3 has been assured in Australia, with the upcoming addition of crash-avoidance technology soon to become mandatory for all new vehicles on sale.
Autonomous emergency braking (AEB) – which can slam the brakes to prevent a rear-end collision – will be added to the manual 911 Carrera T early next year, followed by the 911 GT3 late next year, with the next iterations of each Porsche model.
AEB technology will become mandatory for all new passenger vehicles on sale from March 2025, with an additional requirement for pedestrian detection capability from August 2026.
The current 911 GT3 and GT3 RS manual and PDK automatics are some of the last new vehicles on sale without AEB, a feature standard on a $18,290 Kia Picanto Sport manual.
AEB is also absent from all other manual Porsches, including the 911 Carrera T – and the petrol 718 range, which recently exited production so will not be affected by next year's requirement.
Porsche has confirmed the tech will join the GT3 spec sheet with its facelift locally in the second half of 2025, and the Carrera T in early 2025.
A new GT3 RS is yet to be unveiled, but it is also set to gain the technology, as it shares much of the regular GT3's more aggressive front-end design.
Australia is one of the world's top markets for the GT3, accounting for a high share of local 911 sales – of which 718 have been reported so far this year – compared to other global markets.
"Australia is an enthusiast market … Australian customers are very much into high-end cars, GT cars, top models, and based on this we have a very high share of top-end models," Daniel Schmollinger, CEO of Porsche Cars Australia, told local media earlier this year.
"And based on this we always manage to convince [Porsche head office] a fair share to Australia of GT cars. I'm fighting hard to get as many as possible."
The current 911 GT3 is believed to be the last with 4.0-litre naturally-aspirated flat-six power, before a switch to turbocharging to meet more stringent emissions rules.
"It could live forever without the laws coming," director of Porsche's GT road-car development, Andreas Preuninger, told UK publication Autocar recently.
"I don’t think we can handle Euro 7 [emissions] without electrification or without turbos. [As it stands] we can sell this car for another two years, but it depends on the markets."
He ruled out the latest 911 GTS' hybrid system for the GT3 as it would necessitate the fitment of the regular 911 range's eight-speed auto gearbox, which is 20kg heavier than the current GT3's seven-speed automatic.
Alex Misoyannis has been writing about cars since 2017, when he started his own website, Redline. He contributed for Drive in 2018, before joining CarAdvice in 2019, becoming a regular contributing journalist within the news team in 2020. Cars have played a central role throughout Alex’s life, from flicking through car magazines at a young age, to growing up around performance vehicles in a car-loving family.
