I enjoy manual gear boxes and PDK type equally.

What will you do in a few more years, when buying a new sports car , when the only stick shifts left are available with Corvette or similar American sporty car, a global pocket rocket here and there, maybe a Bimmer/Audi M or RS model and of course THIS ?

You can all see by their expressions how FABULOUS a " man. tranny " is !



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I disagree entirely! I just changed my new 2013 RR Vogue SE for my 991 50th as i was bored senseless with it after a year and couldn't see the point in such a large DD. I constantly thought when driving it and i hit a stretch of open road ugh i wish i had something more fun. Now I'm far more happy with the 991 which has all of the amenities you really need for a DD (when being a single fella aged 30) and has the capability to enjoy those moments on your way home from work when you get the opportunity to have some fun. The 991 with PDK is the perfect DD IMO and when i want a real play about on the roads i have other cars for those exploits.

 

Wow, we get to have both chuck911 with his washboard and other witticisms and now you with the crank... That's awesome! I'll admit I don't see the connection between those and preferring a MT, but then again this isn't my definition of driving enjoyment either:

 

 

Sorry, lost me with the c-word….

 

Ah.. Sir.. I do like your style..

 

Lol. You know, looking at the picture again, I think I should have had one of my kids take the shot so I could have both hands on the controller (that being one of the touted advantages?), but it turned out pretty well anyways.

Now let's get out and enjoy the Spring driving!

 

Slow-shifting a 991 MT is a cool experience. It's gorgeous hearing the engine wind down between shifts.

Not being sarcastic at all... I'm genuinely surprised that the PDK is the preferred transmission on a board where there are so many image-related/conscious posts concerned about which 911 one should own. When I had my PDK-equipped cars, non-Porsche-obsessed passengers would often comment on how they were surprised I would drive an "automatic" in a sports car. (I is italicized because any passenger would know me as a car guy. Oil as blood...not a Porsche guy per se [though that runs very deep], but someone who loves driving fine machines.)

Words to explain the gear like "dual clutch", "millisecond shift times", "launch control (vis-a-vis phallus enlarger)", and "the future" aren't really interesting to most people. It's, for example, William Hurt climbing out from under a quintessentially leaky 911 creating a kind of sex appeal ("Por-sha!") that is far more relatable. The shape, the effort, the commitment... I think that's what is part of the social allure of these cars. After a ride in my MT cars, folks have admitted they finally had or loved their first "Porsche experience". In my PDK cars, I've never heard more than something along the lines of it's a "really fancy" car. Not a scientific study, natch, you had to be there. But I think it says a bit about the allure and presence (and even consequences) of the 911 shape biased against what engineering decisions are being made about the demands of the present and future. (Who gives a rats derriere about what it is... it IS! It's how it is's itself [sic'd myself] that I think people care about on that level.)

Ferrari, for example, doesn't produce modern iterations of the 250 Testarossa attempting to appeal to their customer base or manufacture-ly reveal the importance of family history. They make engineering decisions around what performs better chassis-, aerodynamically-, and ergonomically-wise, and the road to the dual clutch transmission includes a revised interior reflecting that progress. With the 911, Porsche has largely (in so many senses of the word) held onto its basic original shape, yet bent engineering principles into a marketing-slash-deference to what has made the family/company what it is today. So, there was probably a lot of rationalized "Ja ja, das ist sehr gut" decision-making around why they designed the PDK to kind of fit the place where manuals usually go. Sure, that is reasonable engineering, but it also feels forced, cautious, and kind of timid. (It seems to me that Porsche should commit to a single expression of what the 911 is going to be moving forward and stick with it. Perhaps that's an extreme opinion, but outside of the people who care about [and pay for] these cars, there is dissonance around what they really are. For the PDK, it's the same old shape and even with new ways = lazy automatic-driving owner.)

My wife and I have have a debate about which of the last two 911s is sexier...the 997.2C4S or the 991. She feels the 997 is sex on wheels. I feel the 991 is truer to what Porsche genuinely is (and therefore sexier): a nostalgic innovator. The argument from her side is that the car is more honest about its past...it carries through more of its famously historical designs (notwithstanding the PDK). My argument is that the 991 design is a batch of selectively picked, exciting elements of its past and molded into a shape that lets it finally, aggressively move into the future. (Note the way the glass integrated, the deeper wiper bin, the improved 996 "future" design, etc.) Perhaps we spend too much time in the garage....

Anyway, in my rambling mind, the 991 MT is, like the OP says, hugely different from the PDK. However, more important than .3 second degree changes in hooliganism on the streets (unless the test drive was on a closed circuit, and if so, all due apologies), it's Porsche's reinterpretation - in my mind - of the great 80s versions of the cars that its current flock of working engineers fell in love with. (Engineers, who probably grew up on 80s Porsches.) The PDK - mechanically - is the first take at trying to reconcile that with its future.

Eh? Probably not... but whatever, it's the story I tell myself.