Could it be that the low-volume, high-cost Porsche 911 R might have caused more headaches for Porsche?s engineering team than any money the company might have made from it" It was built to bring driving purity back for 911 GT3 and GT3 RS customers, and its key tool for doing so was a painstakingly engineered six-speed manual gearbox.
And now everybody wants it.
Well, not everybody, but Porsche?s engineering team is feeling pressure to move away from its seven-speed manual gearbox and augment the popular PDK dual-clutch automatic in giving people what they want.
When we asked Porsche?s R&D chief, Michael Steiner, if the overwhelmingly gushing response to the 911 R?s six-speeder might convince him to build more of them, he leaned back in his chair and smiled a knowing smile, as if he?d been constantly hearing this internally for months. ?From my point of view, it shouldn?t be the last,? he finally responded. ?Technically, it is possible to have a six-speed manual gearbox. There are good reasons to have such a car, emotion-wise and for driver enjoyment and things like that, but if you look to the mix we have with the Carrera and Carrera S, it?s different.?

The already-sold-out Porsche 911 R features a six-speed manual.
Porsche began offering a seven-speed manual on the 911 with the introduction of the 991 generation for 2012, mainly to lower CO2 emissions with an extra-tall seventh gear, but turbocharging the base engines?a change that came with the 99...