Wild Thing; Porsche's GT2 is the most powerful production Porsche ever.

Well, isn't this just special? We haven't been in the new Porsche GT2 for seven minutes before, three miles up the road, we pass through a toll booth, immediately after which a police officer waves the Guards Red car with the big honking wing over to the shoulder. A sinking feeling comes over us: The Italian authorities are about to ruin our day. Fast red cars in this country only get a free pass if they come from Modena, not Stuttgart. We roll down the window and the officer asks us to step out of the car.

Step out of the car? We weren't going that fast. Seems he wants to see our license and "papers.'' Papers? We don't need no stinking papers. Or rather, we don't have any with us in the car. We try our best to explain what we're doing, how this car is owned by Porsche AG and we're just going for a drive, that we're American auto writers, that we don't mean any trouble, sir. After a couple minutes of hand gestures and waving, he lets us leave, with what we're pretty sure is a warning to cool it. We will, we promise.

Cooling it is no doubt a good idea. These roads just outside Venice are relatively flat and reasonably straight, with long, smooth corners, but once church lets out around 11:30 a.m., traffic gets pretty heavy. It is the last Sunday in February, and the farming season has already begun, meaning tractors toodle along the two-lane roads making 8.5 mph at wide-open throttle. Probably not the best venue on which to get a good, quality day's drive in Porsche's latest supercar.

Otherwise, though, flat straights and wide curves aren't so bad, for this is one serious car: The GT2 is the most powerful production Porsche. Ever. Even the legendary 959 can't match it for thrust. It has 10 percent more horsepower than today's Turbo, but does away with ''annoyances'' such as all-wheel drive and the Porsche Stability Management System. It is a cross between the Porsche Turbo and the 911 GT3. (The GT3, you'll recall, was Porsche's high-horsepower, normally aspirated race car for the street.) The GT2 will go 195 mph. We don't mind staying off the mountain twisties, and we certainly don't mind "cooling it" when half-throttle can still be wicked fast.

The GT2 debuted at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit (AW, Jan. 22), where company officials said they'd prefer you think of the car as a turbocharged GT3, rather than as a Turbo lacking some features. The car's shape fits that notion. It is distinctly 911, but truly looks like a cross between the GT3 and the Turbo, with modifications for more downforce than even the Turbo body produces. The GT2 has larger air intakes in the front air dam, as well as air vents at the front edge of the hood to discharge air over the car's body. Radiators in the front air scoops help cool the air to the brakes. The car's rear spoiler is fixed (unlike the Turbo's, which raises at 75 mph). Air vents in the engine lid and vents in the spoiler supports provide even more air to the engine, forcing it directly to the air filter.

Basically, the GT2's chassis and suspen-sion (MacPherson struts in front, multilink rear) come from the GT3. The GT2 is three-quarters of an inch lower than a Turbo, and has its own unique tires as well. There are 235/49ZR-18s in the front and 314/30ZR-18s in the rear. Both Michelin and Pirelli supply tires. The GT2 uses Porsche's Ceramic Composite Brake system, which Porsche says is 50 percent lighter than metal discs, saving about 11 pounds of unsprung weight per wheel. The GT2 is the first production Porsche to wear the ceramic brakes as standard equipment (they're optional on the Turbo). Porsche says these brakes are not only lighter, but they perform better in the wet. The discs measure 13.8 inches and are cross-drilled, with six-piston calipers in front and four-piston calipers in the rear. The GT2 has a genuine, mechanical limited-slip differential.

The 3.6-liter, liquid-cooled flat six engine is essentially the same as the Turbo's, meaning twin turbochargers and a twin-cam arrangement with four valves per cylinder. There's also dry sump lubrication with the oil tank fitted directly to the block, and VarioCam Plus variable cam timing. It is coupled to a six-speed manual transmission. An engine management-system tweak, combined with a 1.95-bar increase in turbo boost, raises the horsepower to a whopping 462 at 5700 rpm (47 more than the Turbo), and 457 lb-ft of torque between 3500 and 4500 rpm-right in the middle of the rev range, where you need the torque the most.