Like its name suggests, the Porsche 911 GT3 is the brand’s second most extreme road car available from the showroom coming behind the track-focused GT3 RS. Coming from a long line of GT3s, it traditionally comes with a high revving flat-six engine that produces more power than the standard 911 and features some lightweight parts as well.
However, the new 991 GT3 breaks the tradition as it is the first GT3 to only offer a seven-speed PDK transmission instead of the traditional stick shifter. While some might welcome this change, purists however were not so fond of this move and had expressed their disappointment on Porsche’s move to ‘disconnect’ man from machine for the sake of performance.
“The GT3 is full of systems that make sense on the track, but for the purists, there may be something lost,” said Andreas Preuninger, the head of Porsche’s GT Program, to Car & Driver. Realizing this big blunder, Porsche is reacting quickly to rectify the issue and is coming up with the 911 R which basically is a GT3 but with a manual transmission.
And since they do not want to make the same mistake twice, there are also plans to offer the next generation GT3 with a choice of either a seven-speed PDK or the manual transmission. “It is our long-term goal to have the customers decide between the two approaches,” said Preuninger.
