RUMOR: Next Porsche 911 GT3 Will Be Offered With A Manual

Oh happy days are here again!

If this turns out to be true, not only will enthusiasts be overwhelmed with joy, but it’s entirely possible that owners of brand new Porsche GT3s will be kicking themselves. According to this report from Autocar, the next GT3 will be getting, gasp, a manual gearbox option.

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Autocar spoke to Porsche’s head of GT series production, Andreas Preuninger, and he confirmed that a manual will be offered in the next generation of GT3 Porsche. He also confirmed that the GT3 will stay naturally aspirated as opposed to it’s turbo charger cousins.

Porsche will also look to offer more ‘purist’ models in the future as part of regular production runs if the 911 R is a success.

The 911 R will be limited to 991 units because Preuninger didn’t want to make any more or have the R become a regular production model in order to preserve the car’s exclusivity, as with the original 1967 R, which the new car plays homage to.

The 911R, as we now know, was debuted at the Geneva Auto Show and is an absolute stunner.

“We had a GT3 manual test car left and we all loved it,” said Preuninger. “The manual still had many positive sides. So we took the spoiler off the test car, added some lightweight stuff, some stripes and a classic interior. At this point, I took it to the chairman. He liked it, but we had no engineering capacity so only started work 13 months ago. That’s a short time, so I insisted on all the decision making and a long, long leash from the board.”

The original plan was to make 600 units but this increased to 991 following strong initial feedback when details first appeared on the Internet.

Honestly, I glazed over a bit as soon as he said 911, manual, and GT3 in the same sentence. That’s all us enthusiasts need to hear. We can’t wait until it comes out. Now if we can get our hands on a 911R to see what it could be like.

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(Source: Autocar)