I am 40 and my 991S is a non DD toy so I chose the manual because I felt it was more engaging and fun to drive than the PDK. As a teenager, I had a manual Range Rover as my DD so every clutch since then has felt light to me.

 

This isn't a forum to argue over which is the better transmission. They are both great and I'd be happy to drive either. The only purpose of this poll was to determine if Jalopnik's article made any sense or not since it claimed that the loss of the manual on the GT3 and TT can be blamed on old farts who are too lazy to use a manual clutch and row the gear shift. A ludicrous position, if you ask me.

 

I'm 66 and my 991S will be a part-time DD. I don't put on a lot of miles anymore because I don't go to work, being semi-retired and able to do whatever my businesses require from me via email and phone. I've been driving manual transmissions for 50 years and have never lost my love and appreciation of them.

What attracted me to the PDK is its versatility: hold gears as long as you want, up- and down-shift several gears with a precise flick of the fingertips in milliseconds when driving spiritedly, or drive in fully auto mode when not. Best of both worlds, IMO.

I have the luxury of being able to drive a stick whenever I want because I own an old TR3 and an old Austin Healey, so there's never a dull moment.

All I need now is to find some nice, twisty roads with little traffic or residences nearby. That's pretty scarce in Miami (sigh).

 

Yes, old guys do prefer flappy paddle gear boxes.

The part that Clarkson doesn't mention. Is that young guys prefer them too.

According to Porsche, 80% of all of their buyers prefer the PDK, because that is how many they sell. I would bet the number is even higher because you get some people that would love to have the PDK but don't want to pay the $4k premium for it and you get some people that secretly want to own one because they know how awesome they function, but they are too proud and old-school to publicly admit liking them by buying one.

Interestingly, all of the old guys are choosing the pdk because of how well it works, not because they are lazy or don't know how to shift. All of them are good at driving stick, because in the old days, there was nothing but stick to drive. With young people, the preference for pdk is not even a choice; less than half of my guy friends and virtually no girls that I know, know how to drive stick, so they automatically prefer the automatic gear box! I can't really blame them though. When 80% of all cars sold are automatic, you have to want to learn stick and actively seek out a manual transmissioned car to learn it.

 

I'm an old guy and I prefer the old school third pedal and rowing through the gears, double-clutching, blipping the throttle and all that. However, I'm not going to willingly become a dinosaur and have thus chosen to order my 991C2 with the PDK and am excited to use it in manual mode all the time. I have the new 8-speed automatic on my GTC but it's not a dual clutch and has a torque converter so snapping off shifts isn't quite as satisfying as I expect them to be on the PDK. I drive in the manual mode 98% of the time with my GTC to keep me engaged and I really enjoy it. I'll never stop loving an old school manual but am eager to experience 21st-century technology and not become one of those old know-it-alls who bores people with tales of how it was back in his day.