If you’re under the impression that these are bare bones sports cars, think again – sports cars they may be, but bare bones they’re not. The interiors of both cars are swathed in leather absolutely everywhere – from the steering and seats, as you’d imagine, to the dashboard, door panels and even center console. Both feature all the luxuries you’d expect and much more – such as heated and ventilated seats, a 13-speaker Bose stereo, i-Pod & Bluetooth connectivity, and anything else you can think of. Both cars also have a timer mounted on top of the dash, part of the Sport Chrono pack, which allows you to time your drive to and from work everyday if you’re so inclined. Oh, and by the way, 911’s of today even have cup holders.

We were fortunate to have two 911’s with interior trim at completely different ends of the spectrum. The cabriolet had a very tasteful and understated macadamia finish, while the coupe had an eye catching and bright Carrera red. The coupe also had some optional carbon fibre trim, which made it feel extra special. As for respective gearshifts, the PDK had a nice stainless steel surround, but the leather and carbon fibre of the manual seemed a little more enticing – from an aesthetic point of view at least.



Now to the business of driving, which is what you’d buy a 911 for presumably. As has always been the case, the 997 has clear and easy to read individual gauges with a large tachometer dead center. The seats are brilliant in typical Porsche fashion, and all the important controls fall easily to hand. You seem to blend into a Porsche with greater ease than most cars – allowing you to focus of the act of driving these incredible machines. So, let’s see how they do on road.

The Porsche engineers have officially defied the laws of physics by perfecting the handling of the rear engined 911, which appeared to have a fundamentally flawed design with its flat-six motor seemingly suspended behind the rear axel. People used to talk of the 911’s handling traits in hushed tones, as it had a reputation of showing no mercy whatsoever for the unwary. This no longer seems to be case however, as the current crop of the 911’s are as easy to drive as any other car. For better or worse, the Porsche engineers, especially with the current update, have completely dialed out any element of the 911’s tail happy demeanor.

With the current car, especially the four-wheel drive versions that were at our disposal, you can slide the 911 at will with no fear at all of ending up becoming past of the nearest lamppost. My only criticism, if any, would be that these cars are tuned a little too much for fool-proof default understeer – so, if you’re over exuberant with the power too soon, the front will immediately slide wide. And while the steering isn’t as communicative as say a 993 of old, the stiff chassis gives you a running stream of information regarding exactly what’s happening at each corner. Moreover, Porsche’s current traction control system (PSM – Porsche Stability Management) is just the kind of system you want on a sports car – it lets you have a little fun, and only interferes if it feels you’re exceeding the boundaries of your own ability. Some Nazi traction control systems intrude at even the slightest hint of wheelspin, and not only spoil the fun but inhibit forward momentum as well. Not Porsche’s PSM thankfully, which, even when it does cut in, is subtle and unobtrusive. And if you’re a little patient with your right foot, the chassis instills so much confidence that you can slide the rear end at the exit of almost any corner.



And its not the there isn’t prodigious grip either – there most certainly is. It’s just that the power delivery, courtesy of the new direct injection 3.8 liter flat-six, is so instantaneous and so immediate that it takes but a twitch of the accelerator pedal to yield a wave of seamless and unwavering grunt through the wheels and onto the road. Its amazing how quickly these cars pick up speed – 100 km/h comes up in the blink of an eye, and if you forget you’re on a public road for even an instant, 200 km/h is come and gone just as quickly. The power is truly intoxicating – in fact, the magnitude of unrelenting grunt beggars belief. So much so that you left pinching yourself when you open the engine bay, it just doesn’t seem possible for an engine so compact to deliver this level of force. But that’s the beauty of a 911 – made much more so courtesy of direct injection technology.

To get the most of all the technology and power that’s packed into the Carrera 4S however, you have to press a small magic button on the center console – very inconspicuously marked ‘sport.’ This heightens throttle response, stiffens the suspension, extends the boundaries of the PSM, and, in the PDK, increases the shift points & ensures even faster shifts. For an unassuming button on the center console, boy does it have an impact – it takes the capabilities of the 911 to an entirely different plain. And on the PDK, you have a second magic button marked ‘sport plus.’ This ensures that the revs always stay between 4,000 & 7,000rpm, it also activates launch control, which propels this version of the Carrera 4S to 100km/h in just 4.3 seconds – that’s a whole second faster than the previous generation Carrera 4S Tiptronic. And a large part of the reason for this performance gain, other than the horsepower increase from 355 to 385bhp, is the fact that the shifts in the PDK are 60% quicker than the previous Tiptronic. In fact, the shifts are so quick that the manual transmission takes two tenths of a second longer to reach 100km/h.



Not only is the PDK faster, it’s more efficient as well. The manual transmission gives up one gear to the PDK, which has 7 forward gears to the manual’s 6. The gearing of the first 6 gears is largely the same in both gearboxes, but the PDK has the advantage of having a tall overdrive in 7th – so when you’re cruising at 100km/h in 7th gear, the engine is barely awake at around 1,000rpm. And what that results in is slightly better fuel economy, at around 10km/l, in the PDK.

So, from a purely performance point of view, the PDK is the way to go. But from a driver interface perspective, the manual puts up a good fight. The clutch is light and the gear shifts themselves are brilliant. The throws are short and very satisfying indeed with rifle bolt precision – it’s a world away from the slightly ropey feel of the previous generation 911. The PDK, on the other hand, instead of having paddles behind the steering as you’d expect, has buttons on the rim of the steering wheel – you press down on the front of the button to go up a gear and pull up on the back of the button to go down a gear. It seems like dedicated paddles to upshift and downshift would be much more intuitive, but Porsche obviously feel this system is closer in operation to its previous Tiptronic interface. The advantage, of course, is that you can upshift and downshift with just one hand, but as a mechanism for driver involvement, it fails miserably – although you could also use the gear lever to changes gears if you don’t warm up the buttons. But this is where the manual trumps the PDK – you feel very much an integral part of the car in the manual. Moreover, the gear indicator in the PDK, on the dial to the right of the tachometer, is too small and difficult to read – especially in the cabriolet with the sun directly overhead.



The PDK does have a few party tricks however, which provide entertainment even as you’re going down the highway. The transmission can actually be made to adopt the role of conductor over the six piece orchestra behind you. As you’re cruising in a high gear at low rpm, all you need do is drop down a few gears in succession – the engine makes a wonderful noise as the transmission blips the revs on each subsequent downshift. It’s real music to your ears with a surprising melody to the sound – who needs a Bose stereo anyway?



The chassis has a few tricks up its sleeve as well, and that’s in addition to progressive and controlled handling. Firstly, pitch and dive are near non existent no matter how aggressive you are with either the throttle or brake pedal. And, as we’ve come to expect from Porsche, the brakes are nothing short of brilliant. But brilliant isn’t good enough for the engineers at Zuffenhausen, so both cars are also fitted with brake-assist and a mechanism known as ‘brake-system pre filling.’ As a result of which, when you abruptly lift off the accelerator pedal, the system pumps brake fluid to each individual wheel to ensure that when you apply the brakes there’s absolutely no time lost in bringing the car to a standstill. The end result is that you shed speed absolutely instantly. And, at least on one occasion, when the road in front of us literally disappeared into the desert, the system certainly proved its worth.

The driving experience in the 911, PDK and manual alike, is truly something to savour – it really does feel as though it’s been honed to perfection over 45 years – but which is better?

At the end of the day, there’s a lot to be said for new technology like the PDK. It’s more versatile – you can potter around town in ‘Drive’ like in any other car, and also cruise on the highway at 100km/h in 7th gear at around 1,000rpm. Equally, it’s just as happy in sport mode changing gear at absolutely lightning speed at the 8,000rpm red line every time. It’s also faster and more efficient. So, solely as a piece of technology, it clearly betters the manual – it’s simply more advanced.

But the key to a Porsche, versus nearly every other sports car in the world, is just how good it feels, and how much it involves the driver. These modern cars are just so capable and so fool proof. They have so much power and grip that you almost begin to feel like the driver is an erasable part of the equation – at least in a Porsche you seem to play a larger role in the entire process. The 911 is a car in which you want to experience absolutely everything because it’s transmitted so beautifully by the car – a Porsche just engages you that much more than most other sports cars. And it’s the manual that’s simply more mechanical, more involving, and therefore more rewarding.

After a day of spending time in both cars, I felt completely at one with the C4S with a 6-speed manual gearbox – as if I had spent my whole life in the car. And that’s the beauty of a Porsche – and it’s still to be found in a 911 with a manual gearbox. Who knows, maybe someday Porsche will give us a 7-speed manual to try and match the PDK on the technology front as well.

But, at the end of the day, is one gearbox really better than the other? Well, it depends on what you want from your Porsche. If you want your 911 raw and mechanical, and wish to be an integral part of the driving experience all the time, then the manual is for you. But if you want your 911 to be blindingly fast sometimes and completely docile at other times – if you want to go from sports car to everyday cruiser at the press of a button, then the PDK is for you. Me? I’ll take the manual everyday of the week, thank you.