Road Test: 2004 Ferrari Challenge Stradale vs. 2004 Porsche GT3
Narrowing the gap between race car and street machine
By Matt Stone
Photography by John Kiewicz
"It's a street-legal race car!" is one of bench-racing's most abused and overused claims. Trust us: Anyone who thinks his front-drive V-6 Monte Carlo has anything in common with Little E's #8 NASCAR Cupper is delusional. While it's true that some street cars (let's say, a Dodge Viper) will outperform many race cars (let's say, an SCCA production-class Austin Healey Sprite) generally speaking, cars designed for the track have little relevance to cars intended for the road.
Or do they?
Snapshot
The Players
The race-inspired $193,324 Challenge Stradale takes on the fast, edgy GT3, almost a bargain at $106,415.THE GAME
Ferrari and Porsche each offer a serious street-legal sports car that has more than a lot in common with a track-only relative. Which one is faster, corners harder, stops shorter, and makes the driver grin wider? We hit the highway and the test track in search of the answer. |
The days of driving your Porsche Super 90 or Ferrari 250 SWB to a professional road race, competing effectively, and cruising home with your trophy were over in the 1960s; but, today, there's a clear racers-for-the-road renaissance taking place. Production based, GT-class racing is enjoying an increase in worldwide popularity and OEM involvement. So the marketplace is filled with great sports cars with direct connections to their racing versions--and vice versa.
This story pits two of them nose to nose. Each shares its corporate stable with tamer ("standard" 360 Modena and Carrera models) and track-only variants (see sidebar) and is the highest-performing version of its respective platform to which you can legally attach license plates in this country.
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