More exclusive than a supercar: A beginner’s guide to buying a GT3 race car

Audi

In the past decade, the well-worn automotive cliché Race on Sunday, sell on Monday has taken a surprising twist. Now, automakers have realized that they can race on Sunday and sell race cars on Monday. If you’ve got the money, Porsche, Lamborghini, Audi, Acura, Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren, Nissan, Bentley, and more have a race car for you—for around $500,000.

The rise in popularity of supercars worldwide has been paralleled by explosive growth in international GT3 class sportscar racing. GT3 cars are racing versions of the road-going supercars/GT cars that star in video games, YouTube channels, and print platforms. Instead of being built to a specific set of technical rules, in GT3 each make of car is benchmarked and then “performance balanced” by the FIA (the sporting organization that governs world motorsport) to create a relatively level playing field.