Nick

I believe from EVO
http://www.germancarforum.com/commun...arshift.48922/

Horstair

Good points in that article, it's all about the emotion, involvement and I guess "choices". Macho men (or women for that matter) on this continent don't like to be told....
But here's a perfect reason to NOT HAVE A MANUAL... and the Nuerburgring isn't even a traditional racetrack, it's just a "windy road"...
I could not imagine having my hands OFF the steering wheel touching some "down-low" stick to change gears....
http://rumors.automobilemag.com/watc...#axzz2SNw2aLr0

TRAKCAR

"We'll miss them when they are gone" Manuals that is.
Sums it up for me.

911rox

Indeed... Totally agree...

Had every other variant in the 911 range gone PDK only, I doubt anyone would have batted an eyelid... The GT cars had it inbuilt into their ethos and deserved the option! (i) PDK for Porsche and those keen on overall performance figures (ii) Manual for those still wanting that overall involvement at the expense of a few tenths... The turbo has always been faster and the benchmark car for the competition, even Nissan used it as a benchmark, the GT3 has always been the track focused monster for those that wanted more... The GT3 has usually always been slower than the flagship Ferraris and Nissans but its track ability surpassed all. Shame they had to mess with a winning formula

Terrence

I will just buy used cars if I have to, or buy American muscle.

wanna911

Interesting how the manual was accelerating faster and catching up to the PDK car at the 0-100 mark and 1/4 mile. The difference in the two cars boiling down to the launch control, too bad they don't make those for manuals.......

Ferrari is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I dare say Nissan has had a bigger impact on this transformation than Ferrari. Nissan and as the article mentions VW, because VW killed the manual in the Porsche. So yeah, maybe the manual is dead in the European production realm, but it's alive and kicking butt in the states.

Manuals are not dead, they will rule the tracks, especially in numbers for years to come and as long as they are on the American Muscle, they will rule the lap times as well. Porsche and Ferrari will still be trying to catch up to the 2010 Viper ACR in 2020. Big budgets/wings and all. The new Corvette is being launched with manual and Chevy doesn't even have one really on the horizon. The Viper manual will not be deleted any time in the near future. We have at least 2 generations of manual left in those cars + their relevant years of performance which will extend well beyond that.

Sports cars as we know them will be dead before the manual is. And most of us will not be still driving on track when that happens.

wanna911

I'm still trying to figure out how a guy who loses a half second by flipping the paddles on his own manages to lap faster with a manual, even if the car is faster.... He acted like he had 1 billion things to do and couldn't hit an apex, or brake or turn properly because his finger was off the wheel for a split second. But once he got into the manual, everything flowed? LOL, creative journalism.

Nick

Do you manual enthusiast realize that if automatic technology was available at the same time as manual when they first started building cars, manual would never have made it to the production?

utkinpol

here is what I think. PDK is an awesome technology.
As soon as I will understand how to repair this transmission, how much it will cost to replace its clutches, how much it will cost to buy new gears I will buy one.

on a positive side GT Gears already made LSDs for PDK as I understand so with time hopefully it will be as common as a manual gearbox. It is just a regular customer is not a racing team, you cannot just presume that the only way to repair this PDK unit it to get a complete new assembly from a factory. It is how they deal with it right now if problem arises and I really do not want that for my future out of warranty car. Other than that - it is a very good transmission.

jumper5836

Thank god that we where never that advanced back then. Otherwise today we wouldn't even have steering wheels.

triode

Well put, my man.

sunnyr

Using that logic, if Google car was perfected by the time cars were first being made, they would all be driving by themselves too. But am I glad it wasn't.

GrantG

The 997.2 GT2 with manual has launch control...

TRAKCAR

You kidding right, how would thatnwork

Nick

I am looking forward to that day.