Will the New Porsche 911 Ever Get a Manual Transmission?
There’s no option to row-your-own with a 911, for now. Here's if, and when, that might change.
There are many things that keyboard warriors despise about the new 992.2-generation Porsche 911. An amazing sentiment considering I’m on a first name basis with 90 percent of the people who have actually driven them, but why let reality get in the way of a good cyber-bloodletting? As far as the complaints go I’ve seen these: the fact that it’s a hybrid, the movable grilles, the removal of an analog tachometer in favor of a big digital screen, the removal of the twisty $0.14 plastic key-like thingy in favor of a $0.12 start button, and of course, no new 911 is being sold with the seven-speed manual transmission that was an option on some iterations of the 992.1. I say seven-speed because both the 911 GT3 and S/T are still on sale, the former having the world’s greatest six-speed shifter as an option, and the latter having that same gearbox as standard equipment. Both GT cars are, of course, 992.1-era 911s.
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Will the 992.2 ever get a manual? Yeah, probably.
Let me state right here that Porsche isn’t saying anything on the record at this point in time. We asked. We did more than ask, in fact. I sat for a drink or two with Matthias Hofstetter, the director of powertrain for 911 and 718, and he said nothing. I mean nothing, other than that adding a manual to the 992.2 is “technically possible.” Herr Hofstetter has an excellent poker face, however. He quizzed me about RIvian for about 20 minutes, and when he rose to use the restroom I looked at my phone and saw the then breaking news that the Volkswagen Group (which Porsche is a large, profitable part of) is pumping $5 billion into the upstart California EV maker in exchange for software and zonal architecture. When Mattias returned I showed him my phone and asked if he was aware. He flashed me a big smile. My point, again: Porsche is saying nothing.
Technically possible is of course quite different from yes, we’re doing it. We do know that Porsche is saying it’s impossible to graft a manual transmission to the T-Hybrid powertrain that just made its debut on the 992.2 Carrera GTS. After all, the e-motor sits inside the transmission bellhousing just behind the twin clutches. Fun fact: the 992.1 PDK bellhousings have had space inside for a hybrid motor for the past four years. However, six years ago, the 911 team simply could not decide what sort of hybrid to build and the point of no return came and went. So yes, your dentist’s 2022 Carrera S with the PDK has a big blank spot along the output shaft. Obviously, in the hybrid 992.2 there’s now a motor there.
Porsche didn’t give a technical reason as to why it couldn’t build a hybrid manual, but a glance at a cutaway image of the transmission reveals that there’s nowhere inside the 911’s seven-speed manual bellhousing for an e-motor to go. It’s much more tightly packed than the eight-speed PDK. I will caveat this by saying, GT Division boss Andy Preuninger told me to my face that the a 911R-style lightweight flywheel was “impossible” on the 991.2 GT3 and beyond because of the solid valve lifters. Then Porsche went ahead and built the 911 S/T, which you guessed it, has the latest version of said 4.0-liter flat-six with solid lifters and a lightened flywheel. Grains of salt all around, but a manual hybrid 911 seems as close to impossible as anything.
But what about the base car, the plain old 911 Carrera? Again, technically Porsche could, though for right now it’s choosing not to. Starting with the 992.1, Porsche axed the 7-speed option on the plain old Carrera. Just the Carrera S and Carrera GTS could be optioned with a manual. Then came the 911 Carrera T and voila, suddenly a manual transmission was an option on the base car. And yes, the eventual 911 Sport Classic also had the seven-speed, I know. Ahem. Would it make some degree of sense to have launched the 911 Carrera with a manual? Yes, because there’s going to be some subset of 911 buyers that buy the non-hybrid Carrera as a protest vote. Take your stinking hybrid and shove it, despite however good it actually might be. And despite me (and perhaps a few others like me) going blue in the face explaining that the Porsche seven-speed is quite inferior to the PDK, some folks (mostly male Americans) don’t care and demand a manual transmission.
Thing is, Porsche knows this, but Porsche also knows that the Carrera S has outsold the base Carrera something like 9 to 1 for years. The price of the 911 Carrera has inflated quite a bit, up from $106K for the 992.1 to now over $122K before a single option box is checked. You’re not going to find too many protest voters at this price point. Also, please notice that something odd happened with this launch. For as far back as I’ve been doing this professionally (over 19 years now, 14 of them at MotorTrend this month!) Porsche has paired the launch of the Carrera and the Carrera S. In an overt effort to convince the motoring press and potential buyers just how spicy, sporty, and great to drive the new T-Hybrid 911 is, Porsche decided to launch the GTS before the S. The Carrera S, remember, is the volume seller. Meaning that if Porsche was going to offer a manual in a 992.2, it would make sense to do so with the Carrera S. Which means …
… there’s a very real possibility that the T-Hybrid powertrain might be optional on the Carrera S. PDK cars get the hybrid, manual cars get the full-flavor version of the Carrera’s 3.0-liter twin-turbo flat-six. If the manual 992.2 Carrera S were to make about as much power as the 992.1 Carrera GTS, 473 hp, that would slot in nicely between the Carrera’s 388 hp and the GTS’s 532 hp. Or even more. Let’s say the hypothetical new Carrera S’s 3.0-liter engine made around 500 hp. That would work, as the power spread from the 992.1 S to GTS was just 30 horses.
This is all complete speculation as Porsche has said nothing on the record—we even asked again. Porsche probably couldn’t sell a hypothetical 3.0-liter in Europe because of Euro 7 emission standards. Also, most old-world owners are happy with the eight-speed PDK. In the U.S.? We don’t have Euro 7 standards. We may not even have the EPA soon! Plus, American enthusiasts are hungry for manuals. It might make some financial sense to offer both.
To summarize, there’s no manual transmission available on the 992.2 911 Carrera or o the 911 Carrera GTS. The upcoming 992.2 Carrera T will almost certainly launch with an optional seven-speed manual transmission. There’s a chance Porsche could offer a T-Hybrid PDK Carrera S alongside a manual 3.0-liter twin-turbo model (in the U.S., at any rate). What’s actually going to happen? Watch this space, though if you want to go and place a bet on a manual 911 Carrera T happening your money is safe.
When I was just one-year-old and newly walking, I managed to paint a white racing stripe down the side of my father’s Datsun 280Z. It’s been downhill ever since then. Moral of the story? Painting the garage leads to petrolheads. I’ve always loved writing, and I’ve always had strong opinions about cars.
One day I realized that I should combine two of my biggest passions and see what happened. Turns out that some people liked what I had to say and within a few years Angus MacKenzie came calling. I regularly come to the realization that I have the best job in the entire world. My father is the one most responsible for my car obsession. While driving, he would never fail to regale me with tales of my grandfather’s 1950 Cadillac 60 Special and 1953 Buick Roadmaster. He’d also try to impart driving wisdom, explaining how the younger you learn to drive, the safer driver you’ll be. “I learned to drive when I was 12 and I’ve never been in an accident.” He also, at least once per month warned, “No matter how good you drive, someday, somewhere, a drunk’s going to come out of nowhere and plow into you.”
When I was very young my dad would strap my car seat into the front of his Datsun 280Z and we’d go flying around the hills above Malibu, near where I grew up. The same roads, in fact, that we now use for the majority of our comparison tests. I believe these weekend runs are part of the reason why I’ve never developed motion sickness, a trait that comes in handy when my “job” requires me to sit in the passenger seats for repeated hot laps of the Nurburgring. Outside of cars and writing, my great passions include beer — brewing and judging as well as tasting — and tournament poker. I also like collecting cactus, because they’re tough to kill. My amazing wife Amy is an actress here in Los Angeles and we have a wonderful son, Richard.Read More
