Porsche's 992-generation 911 Carrera gets its manual gearbox
But if you want three pedals on anything but a Carrera S or 4S, you're still stuck waiting.
Porsche's 992-generation 911 has had kind of a weird, extended rollout by Porsche standards. When it debuted at the LA Auto Show in 2018, it was only going to be available as a Carrera S with PDK, Porsche's dual-clutch transmission, though other variants were planned to follow, including a manual.
Now, almost a year exactly after that car's debut, Porsche announced on Wednesday that it is finally trotting out the seven-speed manual transmission version of the 992 911. Here's the catch though, so far it's only going to be available on the Carrera S, 4S coupe and cabriolet models. Want three pedals in a base Carrera? Sorry bud, go pound sand.
Also cool is that Porsche won't charge you any more for the manual (nor will it charge you any less, but this is Porsche, and it was never going to do that, was it?). And as a bonus, all manual cars get the Sport Chrono package as standard. That includes Dynamic Drivetrain Mounts, PSM Sport Mode, automatic rev-matching and Porsche's cool-looking mode switch on the steering wheel.
Porsche's shifters are usually short, but the upwards slope of the center console makes it look positively *smol*.
If you go for a manual car, you will also get a good, old fashioned mechanical limited-slip differential instead of the hyper-trick electronically controlled unit that comes with PDK. The mechanical locker is paired with Porsche Torque Vectoring though, so it'll likely be plenty sharp.
While we're excited about the availability of a manual box for the new 911, part of us secretly hoped that the folks in Stuttgart would bin the seven-speed manual in favor of the exquisite six-speed box that it uses in the GT3 Touring.
The seven-speed made its debut in the first 991-generation cars back in 2012 and wasn't all that nice to use. It was improved over the years, but never got to be as good as the brand's six-speed offerings.
Porsche offered no exact timeline for when we can expect the manual Carrera S models to hit dealers, nor when we could expect to see a manual-equipped non-S Carrera.
