The manual transmission is barely clinging to life in America. Just 13% of cars for sale in the U.S. in 2020 were offered with a stick. In 2019 (the most recent year for which we have data), just 1.1% of new car buyers opted for the third pedal.
So, you could forgive Porsche executives for guessing wrong on how many manuals they would sell on the outgoing Porsche 911 GT3. And guess wrong, they did.
“We lost several bottles of wine by betting on the take rate when we reintroduced the manual option,” Porsche Vice President Frank-Steffen Walliser told reporters this week “We were surprised by how high it was.”
Fully 70% of American buyers of Porsche’s track-ready model opt for the 6-speed manual version. It boasts a slower 0-to-60 mph time than the dual-clutch automatic option, even in the hands of a seasoned race driver (and let’s be honest with ourselves – none of us shift as well as that). Yet, Americans willing to spend six figures on their dream Porsche generally don’t want it to shift for them.
Perhaps most surprisingly, Americans bought manuals at a higher rate than customers in any other country Porsche serves. Worldwide, the stick appeared on about 30% of examples of the outgoing model.
To be clear, buyers of the standard 911 are less likely to want to work a clutch themselves. About 25% of them select the manual transmission.
With a new GT3 on the way, Porsche executives are now planning for a run on manual gearboxes. The U.K.’s Autocar reports that Andreas Preuninger, the head of Porsche’s GT and high-performance car division, expects that 40% of 2022 911 GT3 buyers will opt to shift their own gears.
