Porsche Builds A Rare 911 GT3 To Celebrate 75 Years In Britain

Limited 51-car Porsche 911 GT3 Earls Court 51 Edition honors the 1951 356 debut and anchors a wider UK investment push.

Porsche 911 GT3 Earls Court 51 Edition

Photo by: Porsche

Brian Potter

By: Brian Potter

Oct 23, at 6:08am ET

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Porsche Cars GB is marking 75 years since a 356 coupe and convertible first went on show at London's Earls Court Motor Show in October 1951. The UK has since grown into Porsche's fourth-largest market worldwide.

To mark the occasion, Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur in Stuttgart has built 51 examples of a new 911 GT3 Touring Earls Court 51 Edition for the British market, priced from £251,951 (about $335,095). Buyers get a matching Porsche Design chronograph, a leather weekender bag, and a scale model thrown in.

Earls Court 51 Edition

Porsche 911 GT3 Earls Court 51 Edition and 356 coupe

Porsche 911 GT3 Earls Court 51 Edition and 356 coupe

Photo by: Porsche

The car is built on the 911 GT3 with the Touring Package, meaning it skips the standard GT3's fixed rear wing for a cleaner, more understated look. Porsche rates the regular GT3 at 502 horsepower, and this limited run keeps that same output.

What sets it apart is the paint and trim. The Exclusive Manufaktur team developed a bespoke Earls Court Green metallic finish, lifted directly from the color of the original 356 shown in London in 1951. Inside, a mix of corduroy and leather in Night Green and Chalk Beige replaces the 911 GT3's usual sport-focused cabin materials.

Open the driver's door and there's an embossed silhouette of a 356 pressed into the trim. It's paired with the phrase "driving in its purest form," a line translated straight from Porsche's original UK marketing copy.

It's a quiet detail, but it ties the car directly to the brand's first British showing. Porsche also restored an actual 1951 356 from its own collection, repainting it in the same Earls Court Green and giving it a matching Chalk Beige interior, so the old car and the new one now visually mirror each other.

Porsche says just 51 units will be built for British buyers, a number chosen to match the year of that first Earls Court appearance. That makes this one of the more collectible limited runs the brand has handed its UK arm in recent memory, following cars like the Nürburgring-based 911 GT3 special edition and other low-volume variants built around anniversaries.

Gallery: Porsche 911 GT3 Earls Court 51 Edition

Porsche 911 GT3 Earls Court 51 Edition

The original 356 coupe from the 1951 Earls Court Motor Show Porsche 911 GT3 Earls Court 51 Edition and 356 coupe Porsche marks 75 years in the UK - AFN Limited

Source: Porsche

Porsche's Wider UK Push

The anniversary car arrives alongside a broader investment push across Porsche's UK dealer network, which now counts 49 sales and service sites. Recent money has gone into bigger showrooms and workshops at Guildford and Bristol, plus a new satellite location in South Dublin.

A new parts warehouse under construction in Didcot, Oxfordshire will soon take over from the Beenham site the brand has used for almost 20 years. Porsche is also training around 200 apprentices through a dedicated center at its Reading headquarters, covering technician, parts, and service advisor roles.

Krishan Bodhani, chief executive of Porsche Cars GB, said the brand has kept adapting to customers' changing lives over the past seven decades. He pointed to the new 911 Turbo S and the Cayenne Electric as the latest examples reaching UK buyers.

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Bodhani said much of the recent spending has gone toward parts supply and training, the unglamorous aftersales work that keeps a now-electrified lineup running long after the showroom visit.

The 1951 Earls Court debut was arranged by Charles Meisl, a Prague-born salesman who later joined dealer AFN when it secured UK import rights in 1954. AFN's Porsche operation formally became Porsche Cars GB in 1965, the same year the first right-hand-drive 911 reached British roads. The brand's UK lineup has since expanded from that single 356 model to six separate lines spanning gas, hybrid, and electric power.

Porsche marks 75 years in the UK - AFN Limited

Porsche marks 75 years in the UK - AFN Limited

Photo by: Porsche