Are the sports car gods in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen listening to our prayers? For years, Porsche has attempted to coax us into giving up manual shifters and accepting the advent of the automatic. Not a profane slushbox, mind you: They have given us the Porsche-Doppelkupplungsgetriebe, an ultra-quick, ZF-sourced dual-clutch gearbox that, we are told, is a much faster, better, and a more appropriate arbiter of gears than you.
But lo and behold, salvation may be near: That’s what our colleagues at Autocar in the UK claim to have found out. Their report says that Porsche is working on a new and powerful 911 derivative that will be fitted with a manual transmission—unlike the current GT3 and GT3 RS, which lost the stick shift, to widespread dismay.
Autocar speculates that the new model, which could be called 911 GT, will sport what is (somewhat comically) referred to as the “narrow body” of the base models. The speculation fits with our own intel and tidbits from interviews: Porsche r&d chief Wolfgang Hatz said in Detroit that the manual is a possibility for the GT3 RS; and Andreas Preuninger, who is responsible for the GT cars, has affirmed the company’s commitment to the manual gearbox, an especially delicious component of the Cayman GT4.
If we could spec the sporty 911 of our dreams, it would have an enhanced, naturally aspirated flat-six; a six-speed manual (not the seven-speed box in the Carrera and Carrera S); the narrowest body possible; and a subdued design that, perhaps, replaces the electrically operated spoiler of the Carrera models with a fixed unit. Hear our prayers.
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