Originally Posted by destaccado

Well it's clearly much easier to drive the newer cars; hence they aren't losing "a driver or two a year."

A car being easy to drive fast and easy to drive fast "competitively" are apples and oranges. Competitive at that level is fractions of a second.

Originally Posted by Mike in CA

Improved safety measures, safer tracks, and structural improvements in the cars are also obviously a factor.

To bring the discussion back to relevancy, however, the fact that modern race cars like those in F1 have paddle shifters may make them incrementally easier to drive on one level, but it hardly makes them easy or unchallenging to drive. If they weren't, anyone could step in and drive them to their limits. And just as with fast sports cars, no one will be plugging in a programmed chip to replace a human driver anytime soon, so please spare the robot analogies.

Originally Posted by 911dev

How does a base Carrera with its integrated dry sump, sans the aforementioned parts, have racing blood in its DNA?

Originally Posted by destaccado

See that was called sarcasm -- something we can already see you don't understand.

The simple answer is it doesn't have racing-DNA and adding a dry-sump oil system or Ti Connecting rods doesn't change that.

Originally Posted by jfr0317

All this is making me yearn for my uncle's 1947 Mercury.

Originally Posted by Mike in CA

Yeah, simpler times, simpler times... Do you think, back in the day, we would have been complaining if we had to give up our "three-on-the-tree" for a new dual clutch, 7 speed, paddle shift gearbox in a 196mph sports car?

Originally Posted by Mike in CA

Improved safety measures, safer tracks, and structural improvements in the cars are also obviously a factor.

Originally Posted by 911dev

Really? adding a dry sump, or Ti rods has no racing heritage? Wow.

"We" can see how "I" don't understand... hmmmmm, very interesting.

Originally Posted by frayed

So much blah blah blah.

All what really matters is what it's like behind the wheel, whether it puts a permagrin on your face when you get those empty stretches or an open lapping day with light traffic, and whether it proves durable.

Neither of those things, permagrin and durability, can be assessed by any poster in this thread. This will be my 7th 911, which includes the 965 Turbo 3.6, 996 and 997 GT3s, and I firmly believe it will deliver in spades in both departments.

I'll leave the debate of whether it is a 'true' GT3 to the cars and coffee crowd. I'll be out driving.

Originally Posted by TomTom77

@ jfr0317: well said, here we go again, only to end up having the same argument until a new tread open up which eventually leads to the same discussion too... and so on, and so on.

I've said something along these lines before and I'll say it again, but will try to phrase it a bit nicer to avoid being criticized as being 'a rookie' on this forum and thus having no right to speak out like this.

If I was convinced that the new GT3 will be a compromised machine (basically a too heavy, PDKed, RWSed Carrera S-and-a-bit), engineered by a bunch of incompetent, lying engineers, sold by the greedy VW Group who is targeting the wrong market internationally and doesn't even provide proper seats, then I personally would not spend time on this particular (GT3) forum, ending up having the same arguments over and over again with Kool-Aid drinking people who were 'stupid' enough to be fooled into ordering this car. Instead, I would spend all that time searching and test-driving viable alternative cars that can offer me the blend of performance, reliability, fun, driver engagement, image, heritage, plus a manual transmission, as the GT3s of the past have provided...

But then again, that's what I would do!

Originally Posted by destaccado

Obviously! So that makes your comment: "I question whether Lewis, whom I admire greatly, really wants to go back to the days when F1 was losing a driver or two a year" - referring solely to our discussion on the use of manual vs paddle transmissions rather silly don't you think?

Let's be a bit more intellectually honest in our debates from now on.

Originally Posted by destaccado

Fair enough. I'll be here arguing it's not

Originally Posted by Mike in CA

Obviously both the difficulty of driving the cars and chassis and track design were part of the safety equation. That doesn't change the central points, which are that F1 drivers don't really feel they are ready to be replaced by robots, and that despite the use of paddle shifters, the cars are beyond the capabilities of 99.99% of drivers and still offer an extreme challenge.

I thinks that's perfectly honest intellectually, and I didn't mean to confuse our debate by trying to introduce more than one thought at a time.

Originally Posted by frayed

Awesome.