stout

You may not have all the facts to support your conclusions...

Great response.

Great quote, too—although, we are not talking about scientific truth here, because that doesn't apply to personal enjoyment. And if these cars aren't for that, what are they for? For some, there is no doubt that PDK will enhance personal enjoyment. For others, no MT means less personal enjoyment. Not sure how scientific truth applies here...and good luck to any of us trying to measure that. Those M3 sales numbers are probably about as good a metric as I've seen, but...

With regards to arrows, etc., I've taken a few from you of late.

You also seem to be missing a key point: I do not argue against bringing PDK to the GT3, and never have. PDK is excellent and it's about time that a dual-clutch gearbox is offered in Porsche's top-line 911s. If anything, I would have liked to see its inclusion in the 997-2 GT3s despite the mechanical challenges.

No, I simply wish there had been a choice for buyers, instead of one made for them. A choice of MT or PDK, as there is in Boxsters, Caymans, Carreras, and Cayennes. And that is an editor's job when it comes to her or his readers—not to "lead" them so much as serve them, to question decisions that affect them when such decisions are fairly questioned, and to do so in a fair, measured, and professional manner.

pete

sand8

I think the PDK only car is offered for the new population of people that wanted GT3 in the past but can't drive it due to manual only on previous generation.
It is very prfitable for Porsche, there will be fewer manual GT3 in used car market and the price also stable, and the new GT3 sales also up with new PDK market open.

Nick

Pete, professional and well written as your usual.

I am not sure what you reference when you write my conclusions are not supported by the facts. As I am sure you know that the 991GT3 has been sold out before one has been produced for a buyer. Given the car is PDK-S only certainly that speaks volumes as to what buyer preference is. Furthermore, it is my understanding the MT orders in the other 911 models have been on a steep decline. I suspect in a few years like Ferrari Porsche will not offer MT. FWIW, I understand from a technological standpoint many of the new features like AWS, electronic differential and others upgrades would be almost impossible with MT.

It is true I have been critical of your position regarding MT in GT3. Part of the reason is you are in a unique position in the Porsche world. You have a worldwide audience and are highly respected. When a person of your stature tries to pull back the reins on technology it deeply saddens me. When you tell your readers you would not buy the 991GT3 because it lacks MT what message does it send to you readers? Stay with the past and ignore the future in car technology?

This has nothing to do with Porsche sales (as stated above the car is sold out) but rather bridging the past with the future. I don't get the feeling you want that.

Other than that I still love you and how well you write.

Dude-

REALLY???? 2013-2014 allocations are all spoken for and you really think the non manual drivers rushed to get one because they can't drive manual?

Out of maybe 1000 cars, how many new GT3 owners do you think can't drive manual. 5? 10? 50? 800?

Think about it.


GT3 is a car for car enthusiast and not just a car for manual enthusiast.

Petevb

Completely false, Nick. BMW has been doing E diff with manuals for years, while RWS is an electrical system that has nothing to do with the gearbox. Every one of these systems is straightforward to engineer with a manual, and we even know that Porsche did so for the 991 GT3 manual prototypes. Cost for production tooling, etc is a valid question, but the technical argument is a red herring.

Personally I might take issue with statements such as:
Believe it or not, in the US there is evidence that the number of manual transmission enthusiasts isn't on the decline, or at least not nearly as fast as you think. In fact the number of manuals sold in the US is actually increasing- it's doubled since 2007, despite automakers offering fewer cars with manuals:
http://content.usatoday.com/communit...1#.UiDc1hushcY
BMW was forced to bring back the manual in the M5 due to customer demand. And since there clearly is customer demand and there are not technical roadblocks, why not?

Mark Twain's quote- "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated" seems appropriate.

Mike in CA

Pete, if we could have a discussion around the issues you fairly raise, instead of how PDK or a MT is just for (pick one) poseurs/C&C/people who can't drive stick/luddites, it would be a lot more useful and interesting, IMHO.

As for choice, we all have a choice. If you want a MT, there are many sports cars you can buy, including several Porsches. OTOH, if you want a DCT there are sports cars that you can't buy, such as the Corvette, Miata, Viper, Jag F-type and others. In very few consumer product areas do you find a single model of anything that meets everyone's needs, but you can almost always find a model somewhere that meets yours.

The difference in this case is that we're talking about the GT3, a model line that in your Panorama review you called "sacred ground". Some enthusiasts feel that it's sacrilegious to tamper with the GT3 formula, and that changes in the engine, steering, and electronics, much less the gearbox, are verboten. I appreciate that POV and understand where it comes from.

I also think I understand where AP is coming from. I think his goal was to make the 991 GT3 a thoroughly modern, exciting, high performance European sports car, able not only to top it's class, but to fight above it as well. He made decisions as an engineer, not a sentimentalist, in order to achieve that goal. For an engineer, there is little "sacred ground"; in fact if you're not looking for new ways to do things you're probably not doing your job very well. It may be fair to challenge the decisions AP made but not, as some have done, the motivation.

And clearly a few of those decisions, most notably the choice of gearbox, have made some people very unhappy. PDK is fine, but why couldn't Porsche have allocated the resources to develop a new MT to mate to the new engine, redesigned the e-diff to work with an engine driven hydraulic pump instead of with the gearbox, and reworked the myriad of electronics in the car to function with a manual transmission for the few hundred customers (mainly in the US) who might choose it in a limited production car? A loaded question the way I phrased it, sure, but the point is from an engineering, development, and production standpoint the problem wasn't as simple as just plugging in a MT and offering another check-box on the configurator. When you consider that, as it was, development time on this GT3 was reportedly 4x that of the previous model and AP's team was already putting in very long days and weeks, the issues and constraints involved become rather more complex.

I don't expect that this will resolve the argument, I'm simply suggesting that there's more in play here than "just give me a choice".

neanicu

Are we talking sports cars here or SUVs?!

If we're talking sports cars,the Lotus community certainly seems to agree :

http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f157...ffairs-171521/

Now,where is that 1% again?!
Bollocks...

Mike in CA

I was a Lotus guy for 7 years....you spend so much time fixing sh*t on your car you don't really have time to process anything intellectually. Of course that was the old days, maybe it's different now......

Earlierapex

I think you hit the proverbial nail on the head. Given the low production run, designing and implementing a brand new, slower, antiquated MT would have made the car unprofitable OVERALL, not just for the 200 or 300 they would sell in the US.

Petevb

First, I take issue with the idea that they'd only sell a couple hundred- statistics from the M3, etc do not bear that out. Besides, Porsche has previously been happy to engineer entire cars (ie GT2 RS, RS 4.0, etc) that sell in only small numbers.

Second, Porsche has found the engineering resources to engineer no fewer than seven different engines in the Cayenne, for crying out loud, and nine in the Panamera. They are the most profitable auto manufacture in the world, period. They sell those cars and make that profit on the back of the reputation they have as a true sports car manufacture for enthusiests.

100% of the enthusiast buyers of the previous model were manual drivers, and many if not most are upset with the lack of a manual option.
Roughly half of the reviewers who've driven the car lament the fact that it's not available with manual.
Porsche has chosen to alienate some of its most loyal and hardcore customers.

The question isn't how could they afford to allocate the resources, it's how could they afford not to? I don't have a good answer for that.

Earlierapex

Actually, Porsche is an SUV company - in the first six months of 2013, Porsche sold approximately 3 TIMES as many cayennes as 911s.

Seeing as they are the most profitable car company in the world AND they have pretty much already sold out of the GT3, I think they probably know what they are doing.

If you don't want to buy a GT3 (which is apparently as fast as a McLaren) because it doesn't have a carburetor, drum brakes, and torsion bars, you are free to not buy one.

Nick

"The question isn't how could they afford to allocate the resources, it's how could they afford not to? I don't have a good answer for that."

You can't be serious. The car sold out before one was delivered and driven by any customer. That is how Porsche can afford not to do so.

Regarding you hopeful resurrection of the MT you are pissing into the wind. Technology has brought the demise of MT. Make no mistake, the 991GT3 cannot be the car it is if it was equipped with MT. The advanced performance systems in the car do not lend themselves to MT. Ferrari concluded this years ago as is Porsche now.

Petevb

Absolutely. But exactly how many SUVs and sedans do you think they'd sell if they were only and SUV and sedan company? VW and Audi make version of the same SUVs. Porsche makes an average of 22k per car sold. VW? Less than 1k. Why do you think Porsche can command those premiums?

Why have they sold out of the GT3? The have plenty of production capacity, and can easily add more. Porsche has almost always been willing to sell as many cars as the market will bear. If they have "sold out" it's by choice, simple as that. The cynic might argue to pursue Ferrari's strategy of increasing profits:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles...ce-exclusivity

Petevb

Exactly. And I'd prefer the option of the car it could be if equipped with a manual. Slower, but for me, on the street, more fun.

Outright performance numbers are good for the ego of the average driver, little else. My ego's fine, I'll go for the driving experience that's more fun (for me) every time.

Mike in CA

First, I said a "few" hundred not a "couple" of hundred. We can quibble about how many a "few" is, but my assumption was that worldwide more PDK cars would likely be bought than MT cars out of a limited production run. I think that assumption is supported by the trend in high end sports car sales in general.

As to your second point, several of the engines you mention are basically the same across the Panamera and Cayenne model lines. Besides, Porsche sells over 100,000 Cayennes a year and unlike the relatively limited production for the GT cars any investment they make is amortized over a much larger sales volume.

It's true that 100% of the previous model sold were MT. Of course that was the only gearbox choice available so that makes perfect sense. 100% of the reportedly sold out new model will be PDK-S; I'm not sure that proves anything either.

Some reviewers do think a MT should have been offered, some do not, with varying degrees of conviction. All universally agree the new car is spectacular, so in some respects making too big an issue of the reviews concerning MT's is like focusing on the mole on Cindy Crawford's face. In the same way, some hardcore Porschephiles are outraged by no MT, others are accepting, and still others whole-heartedly embrace the change.

Porsche may have alienated some customers, but I'm pretty sure that's not what they set out to do. They may have underestimated the inflexibility of some people on the MT issue and may have thought that building the fastest, best handling, most capable GT3 ever would make up for the lack of a stick and 3rd pedal. Clearly they misjudged a certain segment of their customers. From a strictly business standpoint, and in terms of how many GT cars they will ultimately sell, I'm not sure it makes much of a difference.