We often get asked “Which tyre should I put on my Porsche?” The answer to this can be long and varied depending on model, wheel size and use, plus there are very real technical considerations such as width, profile, speed rating, etc to ensure you have the right tyre for your application.
On the day I bought my 996 C2 many years ago, the road worthy declared the car needed new tyres. Without too much thought, I allowed the seller to select and purchase the new tyres to get the car to roadworthy condition. He purchased a set of Nankang to the correct specification and had them fitted to the car. I don’t believe he ever drove the car after that… otherwise he may have questioned his decision!
I’ve tried a few of the major brands, but I thought you might like to read about my user experience with the Dunlop Z series tyre.
About 6 years ago, I was researching tyres and Stuart put me in touch with Russell Stuckey from Stuckey’s Tyres. At the time, I was considering taking the car on the track to see what it (and I) could do. I was looking for a tyre that could do both road and very occasional track day. Russell suggested I should consider the Dunlop Z1 tyres as they are street legal track tyres.
I was a little sceptical at first as I expected that any tyre that was suitable for both would be compromising either the road or track, or both! I also thought that if they were suitable for the track, they would wear significantly faster than a standard road tyre. How much grip would I get in the wet? With a little convincing, I made the purchase.
On first road drive, the tyres proved they had a substantial amount of grip and clearly in a different league to the Nankang’s. No longer did I have to worry about putting the power down from the lights or pulling away from a corner. I would have put them on par with the top spec road tyres.
As a track tyre, they certainly stood up to rigors of a PCV track day. Whilst certainly not as grippy as an R spec tyre, they are a vast improvement on a road tyre. As they have a strong, thick side wall, you don’t have run them at the high pressures like when tracking a road tyre.
I had the Dunlop Z1’s on the 996 for over 5 years and in that time clocked up 41,000 km and drove the car on 5 track days. Recently, I changed them for the Dunlop Z2’s (next generation). Whilst the tread of the Z1’s had not fully worn out, they were starting to get noisy and a tad hard!! The grip was still ok, but the new Z2’s feel a whole lot better!
By Tim Rout
