The butterflies before driving something truly special. Midnight comes, sleep walks out, and I’m left on the sofa watching my silver arowana, Mr Wiggle, glide gracefully around his tank. Holy expletive, I think. Tomorrow, I will drive a car with mythical status.
When sleep finally shows up, it’s short-lived.
“Cyrus! Someone’s ringing the bell!” says my wife. “Go to sleep, no one’s at the door,” I mumble. It rings again. I jump up. 5:00 AM. Twelve missed calls. Brilliant. I’ve overslept… again. The only other time I’ve done that? For a 911, years ago. At the door stands Nirmeet Patil (he’s the guy who took these awesome pictures), smiling. “Sorry dude, five minutes,” I say, dying inside.
A few hours later, our team waits at Breach Candy. Then we hear it before we see it. Spotters along the coast have already reported its approach. First, there’s just a wing visible above the divider. Then, like a silver patronus, it materialises the 992.1 Porsche 911 GT3 RS MR. Welcome to Storyteller. A new TopGear segment where every month I’ll share a mad story about a mad machine. And what better way to start than with something Manthey Mega. Before we get to the car, a quick history lesson. Manthey Racing, founded by Olaf Manthey, started as a racing outfit running Porsche’s endurance cars before evolving into Porsche’s own go faster skunkworks. Think BMW M or Mercedes-AMG. Or actually, what AMG was to Mercedes in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Or maybe a bit of Brabus and Alpina, albeit without their own VIN numbers. Porsche today owns 51 per cent of Manthey. Order a Manthey kit, and it’s sold through official dealers, installed by Porsche technicians, and covered by a full warranty. This isn’t backyard tuning. It is OEM-grade witchcraft.
I reset my brain into test drive mode, replaying memories of the standard GT3 RS I lived with earlier this year: sharp, alive, borderline manic. This one should’ve been worse. Stiffer, harsher, less forgiving. But it isn’t. The new suspension transforms it. It’s still scalpel sharp, yet somehow lighter, more composed. Comfort? Almost shocking. It glides where the old one jabbed. Manthey haven’t ruined Porsche’s perfection, they’ve refined it. Then, that flat-six roars past 9,000 rpm. Every gear change feels like a sucker punch from physics itself. The PDK’s shift speed borders on the supernatural. Brakes? Next-level firmer pedal, crisper bite, more confidence. On Mumbai’s coastal road, I’m barely scratching its potential. You need Buddh Circuit to truly unleash 1,000 kg of downforce. But even at a fraction of its limit, the Manthey RS radiates intent. Every control, every vibration, every noise tells you this is theclosest you can get to a Cup Car on number plates.
Now, here’s where the story gets delicious. A few weeks ago, the Indian automotive internet lost its mind. This exact car wasspotted in Dubai, flaunting its Manthey kit. Theories flew; it musthave been installed abroad! Wrong. The entire kit was installed here, in India by Manthey-certified Porsche technicians. Dubai
merely provided laser-calibration tools we don’t have here. After that, the car hit Yas Marina. And guess what? It broke theproduction car lap record. Not just an Indian headline, but a global one. Fifth overall on Yas’ all-time leaderboard, behind only multimillion-dollar race cars. And now it’s back home, where it will eventually rule the leaderboard, but before that, it will rule Mumbai’s streets and all of your Instagram algorithms!
The keys land in my hand. Young Cyrus, the one who lived on TopGear reruns and car posters, would’ve screamed. Present-day Cyrus just whispers a quiet prayer and tries to fit in the bucket seat. Barely clicks the harness. Twist the knob, ignition on, and it growls awake. All those journalist clichés “angry symphony,” “mechanical orchestra” none of them capture the goosebumps.
The 992 GT3 RS already looks like a Le Mans car that escaped the paddock. The Manthey kit takes that insanity and dials it up to 11. A stock GT3 RS costs J3.5 crore (ex-showroom). Tick the Weissach pack, add another J75 lakh and you gain nothing but bragging rights. The Manthey kit? J1.5 crore more. But this isn’t cosmetic. It’s aerodynamic precision with a German PhD.
This car, India’s first full Manthey GT3 RS, belongs to a man affectionately nicknamed “Desi Stig.” He’s no stranger to Stuttgart’s finest, his previous 991 GT3 RS was already mental. But this? This was built to rewrite records. He already holds the BIC lap record for a road car (1:59.612 in a GT2 RS) and the SUV record (2:12.297 in a Cayenne Turbo GT). The new goal: a 1:58. A proper mic-drop. I’ve known him for nearly a decade.
I was there the first time he hit the Buddh circuit, me in a BMW 530d, pointing out lines, giving them my little expertise having driven around the track (relatively slower) over a thousand times!
Today, he’s hands-down the finest non-professional driver I’ve ever seen. And when he tosses you his keys, you don’t just respect the car. You worship it. Visually, it’s part jet fighter, part time machine. Up front: a 50 mm longer splitter held by twin carbon struts, dual canards on each corner, and sharper bumper flicks to redirect airflow. Overhead: eight roof strakes instead of two, channeling hot air away from the engine toward the rear wing. Out back: a deeper diffuser with a wild curvature profile that changes midway to ensure the flow rate changes thus proving better downforce. And then there’s the pièce de résistance, the carbon fin, replacing the rear window. Manthey literally deleted glass and installed carbon for better stability. Because why look back when you can attack forward? The rear wing itself isn’t any taller and is mounted on the same standard uprights from the factory. But what it does get is a wilder endplate and the DRS flap now has a slit in it for even more downforce around corners. Add the rear-wheel aero discs (I wonder if anyone makes carbon dinner plates), and you’re looking at a car that screams track weapon.
A stock GT3 RS costs ₹3.5 crore (ex-showroom). Tick the Weissach pack, add another ₹75 lakh and you gain nothing but bragging rights. The Manthey kit? ₹1.5 crore more.
It’s aerodynamic precision with a German PhD. The adaptive suspension reads 1,000 data points per second, the flat-six revs past 9,000 rpm, and it generates up to 1,000 kg of downforce.Built by Manthey-certified Porsche technicians in India, thisGT3 RS MR stands as a record-breaking, road-legal race car a multi-crore masterpiece engineered for perfection.
