Color Check: White on White 911 GT3 at Porsche Zentrum Stuttgart Circa 2009

There’s no doubt white on white, i.e. white body with white wheels, was definitely popular at Porsche in the 1980s. Cars like the 968 Clubsport were even coming white-on-white into the 90s. Then, the practice went largely underground for years until more recently. In the 2000s, the look was largely gone, so when we stumbled across this Porsche 911 GT3 (type 997), we were drawn to go pull our pre-iPhone DSLR camera out of the car and snap a few shots.

The location was the old Porsche Zentrum Stuttgart. At the time, it was located right next to the Porsche factory grounds, and later demolished to make way for the building of the current Porsche Museum and factory expansion. In 2009 though, it was a cool welcome area just across the street with cars like this (and note that Carrera GT one floor up) to draw you in for a look.

Near as we can tell, this car is Carrara White (carraraweiß; metallic UNI; LS9R, 2Y; Porsche), with the option of color-matched wheels. No, we didn’t misspell it. Carrara White oddly gets the “a” while Carrera in the Porsche 911 lineup is spelled with an “e”. Vowels aside, Carrara White is not an especially special color and has been pretty standard fare in the 911 lineup for decades, years that included the 997 era. What caught our eye though was the white on white configuration was looking fresh. No doubt it was as simple as ticking the color-matched wheel option but we still appreciate the specification. In addition to the 80s nod, white has always been a reference to to motorsport. More than just body-in-white references, white was the original national German racing color prior to the arrival of the Silver Arrows from Mercedes and Auto Union.

We don’t know whatever came of the car. It was in the Pre-Owned inventory at the Porsche Zentrum and we were just passing through doing car tourist things on a circuitous route to that year’s Frankfurt IAA Motor Show. The photos stuck though because it’s just such an iconic and timeless look.