Manthey turns 30, and its Kits are the closest thing to a factory Porsche upgrade
Manthey started as a single Nürburgring race shop in 1996. Thirty years later, Porsche owns 51 percent of the company, and its road-going Kits are the closest thing to a factory-endorsed way to make a GT3 RS faster
Manthey Racing is marking its 30th anniversary in 2026, tracing back to a single race workshop founded by Olaf Manthey in 1996 near the Nürburgring. Brothers Martin and Nicolas Raeder bought the company in 2013, the same year Porsche took a 51 percent majority stake, and Manthey has since grown into a roughly 350-person operation spanning racing, road-car development, driving experiences, and customer race cars. Alongside decades of endurance racing pedigree, the brand's road-legal Manthey Kits have become the closest thing to an officially blessed way to upgrade a Porsche GT car.
From one Nürburgring shop to a Porsche-owned motorsport operation
Manthey built its reputation the hard way, through race victories and record-breaking laps around the Nürburgring's Nordschleife long before Porsche came calling. The 2013 acquisition by the Raeder brothers, paired with Porsche's 51 percent stake taken that same December, turned a specialist race team into something closer to an extension of Porsche Motorsport itself, with Thomas Laudenbach, Porsche Motorsport's Vice President, now chairing Manthey's board. The company today operates four divisions, Racing, Road Cars, Experience, and Race Cars, under three brands: Manthey Racing, Raeder Motorsport, and Equipment for Rennsport. "Growth comes from ideas, courage and pursuing paths others may not yet believe in," founder Olaf Manthey said of the journey, while Martin Raeder credited the culture behind it: "Each individual has contributed to the company's development, constant development is a key part of what motivates Manthey."
What a Manthey Kit actually is
The Manthey Kit is a model-specific, road-legal performance package sold exclusively for Porsche GT models, built around the same priorities that win endurance races: more downforce with less drag, genuine weight reduction rather than cosmetic changes, and suspension tuning sharp enough to change how the car actually feels to drive. Manthey even developed its own lightweight 20- and 21-inch wheelsets with Porsche's Weissach Development Centre, engineered specifically around the aerodynamic loads its own kits generate. Nine Porsche models currently qualify: the Taycan Turbo GT with Weissach Package, which already used its own Manthey Kit to set a 6:55 Nürburgring lap, the 911 GT3 RS in both 991 and 992 generations, whose Manthey Kit has run a 6:45 lap of its own, the 991-generation 911 GT2 RS, the 911 GT3 in 992, 992.2 and Touring Package form, and the 718 Cayman GT4 and GT4 RS.
A year already stacked with milestones
Manthey opened its 30th anniversary season at the 24 Hours of Daytona on 24 January, where the first 911 GT3 RS fitted with a Manthey Kit served as the event's official safety car. The brand's famous green-and-yellow Grello livery, one of the most recognisable liveries in Nürburgring 24 Hours history, turns 10 in September 2026. Manthey has also expanded into IMSA racing in the United States this year, adding to a résumé that already spans NLS, Le Mans, the FIA World Endurance Championship, DTM, and GT World Challenge.
A book instead of a limited-run car
Rather than mark the anniversary with another special livery or a numbered wheel finish, Manthey has published a 152-page hardcover book, 30 Years Manthey: Three Decades, One Legacy, Endless Passion, 1996 to 2026, priced at €50 and running to roughly 240 large-format photographs. It covers NLS overall victories, Le Mans results, DTM titles, WEC achievements, the growth of the Manthey Kit range, this year's IMSA entry, and complete driver and class-win statistics, available in German and English.
AutoNext Take
Porsche does not typically let outside tuners anywhere near its GT cars, let alone take a majority stake in one, and the fact that Manthey Kits now exist as a semi-official upgrade path says a great deal about how much trust that relationship has earned over 13 years. This reads less like a badge-engineering tuner deal and more like an in-house skunkworks that happens to sit outside Porsche's own corporate walls.
Marking 30 years with a photo book rather than another special-edition wheel or livery is the right instinct for a company whose actual product is engineering credibility, not merchandise. A 350-person operation that grew out of a single Nürburgring workshop, and now gets to put a GT3 RS wearing its own kit on track as the Daytona safety car, has earned a quieter, more reflective anniversary than another limited-run trinket would have given it.
