Such notes appear from time to time on my Porsche test cars. Everyone puts their own spin on the American dream. For Can, my not-so-anonymous Vietnamese neighbor, a red 911 has a starring role. Can was 16 when he first saw a red Porsche, from behind the concertina wire of a refugee-relocation camp in Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania.

“My brother pointed it out. He said, ‘James Dean died in one of those.’ ”

Somewhere, a couple of layers in from hard-core, is the Porsche 911 GT3. Pocked all over with dugouts and screens and graced by one big chiropteran wing, the GT3 is not like other 911s. The focus is sharpened, the reflexes tapered to sashimi-slicing perfection by Porsche’s grindstone. Only real 911 junkies drive GT3s because there’s no dual-clutch automatic offered, and at 435 horsepower, the GT3’s older, port-injected 3.8-liter flat-six from the racing-based GT1 98 engine family is a high-strung screamer with an 8400-rpm redline and not much torque below 5000. And it’s down 65 horsepower from the similarly priced (including a few of the GT3’s many options) direct-injection Turbo.

The GT3 RS with its forged tungsten suspension? Well, that’s just for crazy people.

This 2010 GT3 arrived for testing with 59 miles on its clock. It was without blemish, just as Porsche’s line workers had built it. The double-barreled tailpipes gleamed. The suspension sparkled. The Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tires bristled with nibs. Even the black plastic chin spoiler, hanging just 3.8 inches above the scarring pavement, was clean of scrub marks.

That night, it rained, and the next day  we had to drive the car down a muddy road. Sometimes this job sucks.

Can’s family comes from North Vietnam. They moved south to escape Ho Chi Minh, his father finding work in the U.S.-supported government. As South Vietnam collapsed, government employees, and especially those who had previously fled the north, were singled out. Can’s parents leveraged a contact in the Vietnamese navy to get a ride out for the whole family—Can and his eight siblings—on a fleeing destroyer one day before the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.

“It’s amazing,” says Can. “One day can make a difference in your whole life.” Three months later, Can was in Pennsylvania, learning the difference between a Porsche and a Citroën 2CV, the only other car he had ever heard of.

The stick shift of a 59-mile-old GT3 moves with all the fluidity of an oar in wet concrete. Porsche assured us that the shifter would loosen up quickly. The “break-in hints” on page 13 of the GT3’s owner’s manual include: Never lug the engine in high gear at low speeds, do not exceed an engine speed of 4200 rpm, and avoid full-throttle starts and abrupt stops. We read that right before winding it up to about 5500 rpm and popping the heavy clutch.

Even on new, nib-studded tires, a GT3 hits 60 mph in 3.8 seconds with a piercing wail that sounds like an entire Le Mans grid stuffed into two mufflers. That’s the same time as the last GT3 we tested [March 2007]. Since then, horsepower is up by 20 and the weight by 40 pounds, to 3280. With more miles on this car, one might eke out another tenth or two. Still, our GT3 stopped from 70 mph in 145 feet. Most cars couldn’t match that if they hit a parked dump truck first.

Can and his family ended up in San Francisco in 1977. There, while taking driver’s ed., he saw his first 911 Turbo. “I remember the whale tail—and the butt, the way it just spread out. I thought, ‘How could that butt be so big?’ ”

Buying a Porsche is about confronting choices. Aside from the 15 available colors, there are 129 line-item options for a GT3 (picking some precludes others, but you get the idea—it’s best to clear the schedule of any appointments, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and so forth if you’re heading to the dealership). You’re as likely to find a base, $114,450 GT3 as you are to meet a leprechaun, in which case you won’t want the base car anyway.

Our GT3 had $15,815 in options, including navigation ($3110) and adaptive sport seats ($2295), two Caesarian thrones of leather and Alcantara—that’s synthetic suede—that come with switches to bolster your torso, legs, and lumbar regions. (Alcantara is the surest sign that your car is serious, and in the GT3, the wheel, shifter, seats, and headliner all are covered by or fashioned entirely from it.)

The one option no GT3 should be built without is the $3490 pneumatic nose lift, which, at the push of a button, raises the chin 1.2 inches for curb cuts and other urban obstacles. We still managed to scuff the front spoiler, but, hey, we’re pros.

Can went to medical school to become an anesthesiologist and eventually moved to Los Angeles. He bought his first Porsche in 2005, a brand-new Carrera—red, of course. A year later, it was rear-ended by an uninsured driver in a Toyota 4Runner. “I found out that a rear-engine car doesn’t like to be hit by a tall truck,” he says.

The Carrera was ruined, and the insurance company paid him the full purchase price and the sales tax. The $80,000 check, Can decided, was a “sign from God that I need more torque in my life.” So he bought a Turbo.

New on this GT3, Porsche’s dynamic engine mounts ($1300) go rigid at speed to restrain the inertial engine motions that help gyrate a 911’s body in corners. They relax in more placid moments to soak up engine noise and vibration.

After a few left and right cranks, you realize that this isn’t the same old white-knuckle 911. Greatly reduced are the restless bounding and side-to-side shimmy that induce cold sweats in our favorite rear-engined retro-rocket. This GT3 is more settled, turning in with hyper-alert steering and staying surprisingly cool, even over midcorner pavement thrusts.

Away from a track, the two-position shocks are best left on soft (officially “normal”) so the suspension can digest natural road lumpiness without undoing the engine mounts’ good work and upsetting the car. The wussy setting is also just pliant enough to make city driving tolerable, even if the Michelins can outrumble the radio.

Eyes wide, Can says, “Are you trying to kill me? I’ve never driven that fast before in my life.” We’ve been chasing each other through hills, GT3 versus Turbo. Can likes the GT3 okay, at least as a “great ‘two-hours’ car for the weekend,” but isn’t forsaking his Turbo. He prefers its low-end push and more forgiving ride for his daily commute to Long Beach Memorial.

More importantly, though, it’s red and it has a really huge butt.

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