June 12, 2013

The Dilemma: Chris Harris Takes On The Porsche 991 GT3

Everything you wanted to know about the new Porsche GT3,  PistonHead Chris Harris puts a GT3 through its paces.




The nail in tthe manual transmission's coffin?  Harris has an existential moment,  decides best cure is hooning the GT3.  We agree with that.
(PistonHeads)

11 comments:

  1. Basically proves the point that you can only judge a car by driving it and how it actually feels. Given the complexity of what a complete car is, it cannot be judged by individual or lack-off some. I've been saying it for 10 years: A clutch and H pattern control is obsolete in a car at these level of performance. You can have a lot more fun, and explore new limits of entertainment and car control with paddle-shifitng.
    However, auto-mode is just wrong....
    You really have to change your own gears...

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  2. and left foot brake properly...

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  3. because usually when you hear people wax poetic about their heel toe skills and the mechanical interaction of pushing a stick around, you never hear about the satisfaction of completing a perfect brake to throttle transition at the apex. That's dancing with the whole car and physics, potentially more rewarding than just changing gear correctly.

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  4. Is it true that most modern sports cars, for safety/liability reasons, do not allow the brake and throttle to be operated simultaneously, thus limiting left foot braking? Is this the case with 997 and 991 Carrera?

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  5. Folks are weird. They want a $100K+ sports car with the pinnacle of engine, suspension, and aero dynamics but want a metal stick to push the gears back and forth.

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  6. well, I think many overestimate the difficulty of manually changing gears or even doing a heel toe downshift. I mean, it's fine but my mom can do it, it's no big thing. Now carrying 20mph more than you thing you could into a turn, that's a neat trick!

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  7. Folks are weird when they spend that much money on a car to drive, then relegate as much of the core processes of driving to robotics and electronics as possible. What next? Are you going to make fun of people who use silly round objects to manually steer their car?

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  8. I had an Audi that did that and I hated it, I believe the first gen Cayenne did it too. But BMW don't do it for example so it's not a given

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  9. But then you should only drive cars with no ABS, Syncro gearboxes, power brakes. Which is fine, there are plenty out there on the used market that can give you that experience.

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  10. Actually the steering wheel in my racecar is not round. I'm not making fun of manual gear changes but what it means to folks like you. Point being I want fast and reliable, you want a metal stick that pushes gears back and forth.

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