Guest column: Neil Furber
Dancing on the pedals
GUEST COLUMN
With an engineering background and previous career in Formula One, performance driver coach Neil Furber reveals his blend of driving tips and vehicle technology explanations to help you get more from your rear-engined machine
Nine eleven. Naturally aspirated. Air-cooled flat six. When it comes to Porscheflavoured purists, these things are popular. But there’s one more crucial ingredient: a manual gearbox Of course, the modern PDK (twin clutch transmission) is superb and has been chosen for the majority of new 911 purchases in recent years. PDK performance has come on in leaps and bounds from the earlier Tiptronic system (and its Sportomatic predecessor covered in issue 215 of Total 911). Earlier cars tended to require manual cog-swapping, but as the most modern examples fan out into the secondand third-hand market, manual gearbox-equipped cars are becoming a challenge to find. A quick search on the Porsche Finder database for UK Porsche dealer stock in early April yielded just three manualequipped cars among the 57 examples of the 991.1 and zero (!) for the 997.2’s seven-car offering.