Reports that the purist driver’s car is dead have been greatly exaggerated. At least one automaker is committed to keeping the format alive – and that automaker is Porsche.
According to Autocar, the success of models like the Cayman GT4 (pictured above), 911 R, and the new 911 GT3 Touring show the bean-counters in Zuffenhausen that there’s some people at least still want naturally aspirated sports cars with manual transmissions.
“The GT4 showed us there was demand for a pure driving Porsche with a manual gearbox,” said Porsche GT chief Frank Walliser. “This theme of ‘pure and simple’ is a success in other fields too, like scrambler motorbikes and single-speed bicycles. People like simplicity.”
The immediate product of that thinking is the new Touring package for the GT3 – which, unlike the previous 911 R, isn’t a limited edition that’ll sell out before all interested buyers get their chance. And there’ll be more.
Next down the pipeline will be a new Cayman GT4, which is likely to go with the atmospheric six that the new 718 did away with on all other variants. “We won’t do a performance four-cylinder,” Walliser told Autocar.
Don’t expect the same treatment to be applied to lower-powered versions of the 911, though, or other models in the Porsche lineup. The GT division (which does the GT2, GT3, and GT4 models) has said it will never do a crossover like the Macan or Cayenne, and the Panamera (we’d add) hardly seems ripe for the hardcore treatment, either.
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