Photo: Porsche AG. The 992.2-generation Porsche 911 Cup.

By mid-2025, Porsche had built 5,381 one-make racing versions of the 911 since 1990, and it describes them as among the most produced racing cars in the world. Porsche's 911 Cup development release The current car is largely derived from road-approved 911 GT models and is built at Zuffenhausen alongside series-production cars. Porsche's U.S. 911 Cup release That makes the Cup car a running record of how the road 911 has changed.

The air-cooled start

The series had a predecessor in the Porsche 944 Turbo Cup, which ran from 1986 to 1989. The 911 era began at Zolder, Belgium, where the first qualifying session of the Porsche Carrera Cup took place on March 31, 1990, with 38 technically identical 911 Carrera 2 Cup cars. Olaf Manthey took pole, won the first race and became the first Cup champion. Porsche's Christophorus account

That 964-based car was a stripped road car with a roll cage, sports suspension and exhaust, a differential lock and shorter third-to-fifth gear ratios, and it kept its ABS and three-way catalytic converter. Its 3.6-liter engine made 265 to 275 PS, and 297 were built. The 993 Cup followed in 1994 with a 3.8-liter engine, 310 to 315 PS and a multi-link rear axle; 186 were built. Porsche's 5,000th Cup car article From 1993, the Cup 911 also raced in the Porsche Supercup. Porsche's 992 GT3 Cup release

Water cooling, wings and paddles

The 996 GT3 Cup of 1998 was the first Cup 911 with a water-cooled six, rated at 360 to 390 PS, and 873 were built. A large rear wing introduced in 2001 doubled the downforce on the rear axle. The 997 GT3 Cup arrived in 2005 with 400 to 450 PS and about 40 percent more downforce than its predecessor, and its 2010 evolution took its engine from the GT3 RS road car. Its run of 1,485 cars is the largest in Porsche's generation-by-generation list. Porsche's 5,000th Cup car article

The 991.1 GT3 Cup of 2013 was the first Porsche one-make cup car with shift paddles on the steering wheel, and it added a newly developed roll cage and a rescue hatch in the roof; it made 460 PS, and 673 were built. Its 991.2 successor moved to a newly developed 4.0-liter flat-six with 485 PS from 2017. Porsche's 5,000th Cup car article

The pattern holds across the generations. Each step carried road-car hardware forward, first water cooling and later GT3 and GT3 RS engines, and wrapped racing-specific safety and aerodynamics around it.

The 992: wide body and synthetic fuel

The 992 GT3 Cup, presented in December 2020, made 510 PS from its 4.0-liter flat-six, with peak power at 8,400 rpm and an 8,750 rpm redline. It was the first Cup car with the wide, turbo-spec body, used double wishbones with Uniball bearings at the front and electro-mechanical power steering, and shifted its sequential six-speed dog gearbox through paddles with an electric actuator. Dry weight was 1,260 kg, the engine could run on synthetic fuels, and Porsche's 2021 Carrera Cup calendar included North America for the first time. Porsche's 992 GT3 Cup release By August 2025, 1,130 had been built since production began at the end of 2020. Porsche's U.S. 911 Cup release

The 992.2 911 Cup

Revealed in August 2025 for the 2026 season, the latest car is officially called the 911 Cup, as Porsche reserves the GT suffix for customer race cars built for open-brand series or specific segments, such as the 911 GT3 R. Its 4.0-liter makes 382 kW (520 PS), 10 PS more than before, and needs an overhaul only after 100 hours of track time. Bosch M5 racing ABS is now fitted ex-works to every car, and Porsche listed it at 269,000 euros before country-specific taxes. Porsche's 2025 911 Cup announcement

The U.S. release adds thicker front brake discs, a three-piece front spoiler lip so damaged sections can be replaced individually, and a central control panel cut from ten switches to eight. The car runs in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup and in Carrera Cup North America, Germany and Asia from 2026. Porsche's U.S. 911 Cup release

For road-car owners, the Cup car works as both a preview and an archive. The double-wishbone front axle and swan-neck wing reached the 992 GT3 road car and the 992 GT3 Cup within a few months of each other Porsche's 2021 GT3 premiere, and the Cup's long production record shows which ideas Porsche trusted enough to hand to paying racers season after season. If you want to see one up close in the U.S., Carrera Cup North America is the place to start.

Production figures and specifications are Porsche's published data. No TUNERS track test is claimed.