Petevb

I often wonder about this- nature vs nurture. Do I prefer things because they are actually "better", or just I've imprinted on them? Undoubtedly there is some of each, but I like to think that it's more the former.

I've been lucky enough to have a wide range of automotive experiences- I lived in Germany for a couple years and got to know those roads, and I've owned and competed in over a dozen sports cars over the years, new and old, most but not all of them Porsches.

If I was purely imprinting on early experience I don't think I'd own a couple cars a half dozen years older than I am- I started in cars far younger. I also started in cars far "better" (ie modified 944 turbo), so I don't think my preference for challenge is because that's what I know. Instead it's where I've evolved to, and others with similar experience I know have taken similar paths. I need to stay cognizant, however, that at 40 my path's taken me further than most, though still well less than some.

Will the following generations ever learn to drive manual transmission? I'm sure many of them won't. Indications are that many of them aren't even all that interested in cars, and if you take the bulk of today's trends you could convince yourself that self driving 4wd hybrids are all you'll need in 20 years.

I'm sure there will be plenty of those, but I also think they'll make the counterpoints even more desirable. Are those counterpoints only vintage cars? Certainly we're seeing the demand for those skyrocket. Or will there also be new cars that use modern technology to deliver even better driving experiences far more safely and reliably? I suspect there will be. Consider watches: most who buy a modern mechanical movement watch were born after quartz movement was invented. Quartz is "better" in every measurable way- more accurate, smaller, cheaper. Yet there's something missing, so the most prized watches are mechanical.

I think that as cars get "better"- shiftless electric is "better" than PDK, hypergrip 4wd is "better" than slidey RWD, etc- the choice between raw speed and experience will gets more and more obvious. And more people will realize they are really seeking the latter.

hellboy_mcqueen

I wouldn't consider buying a PDK GT4, not that it is bad.
Based on the only fact that matters - "I dont like it".

Manual transmission enforces me to think more and it is physical. I try to master it, hence playing with it. I really dont care if GT4 is faster or slower with PDK on the track. If I cared, then I would have bought a Radical with sequential instead.

And driving GT4 should be a ceremony for me or an event. Hence I got the LWBs, Clubsport package and I would not get a PDK even if it is available. I am sure it will be horrible trying to get in the car, but it is a part of the experience.

It might be the case that it is over-tyred. But this is my first GT car and most probably wont be the last one if they continue to serve manuals.

my 2 cents

997rs4.0

I'll just add one thing.

With self driving cars already here as prototypes. We better enjoy this moment of Porsche greatness.

I drove a BMW 740 last week in Europe. Got on the highway in south Sweden. Drove 300miles without touching brake or accelerator. Had all the gadgets. It was the most boring drive ever. And it's around the corner.

Petevb

I saw my first of the newest small Google cars on the road Monday. Two guys and a laptop, one hand on a kill switch. No steering wheel.

Apple's effort is ramping up- they've poached a bunch of BMW execs and some guys from Tesla. Tesla's further ahead- they're beta testing self-driving with actual customers now.

A Porsche is currently 95% hardware, 5% software, but we're moving towards >50% software. Legacy manufactures are not staffed for this, and they're all worried they'll be the best typewriter manufacturers in a PC world.

The question in my mind is if there will be a big enough segment buying for driving experience to justify the parallel path. Digital watches dominate the market in terms of volume, but there's still a good analog business there. It's clear that some niche will remain as long as it's not legislated out of existence, but how big will it be, and what form will it take? Porsche currently tries to satisfy a wide range of requirements with a single platform, but it's not clear that's going to be possible for much longer.

joe12pack

This is exactly why I am buying a GT4. I wasn't planning on buying a car for $100k but with what I am seeing with the electric/driverless cars I realized that we are in the final and golden age of cars with an internal combustion engines + manual tranny + human driven.

Driverless cars are already here and will be the future. I have my theories about why the elite are pushing for driverless cars. It's a form of control. Don't pay your taxes you don't get to move around. Plus many areas of the world are going to be off limits for humans (Agenda 21) and robot cars are an easy way to do this.

Driverless Cars Are The Death Of Freedom:

Archimedes

I wouldn't break out the tinfoil hat just yet. Most of the people on here this forum will be long dead and buried before truly driverless cars are ubiquitous in this country.

sapman

Bonster

Priceless!!!!

997rs4.0

I'm not to sure. It's already here. Sure there is a lot of work to be done. Liability is a big question mark. who is to blame if things go wrong.
But the cars can already brake/steer and acellarate. I wouldn't feel uncomfortable being a passenger in a computer driven car down an interstate.

jphughan

For now at least, cars with autonomous features still come with a throttle, brake, and steering wheel, and at least in Tesla's case, I believe the features only continue to work as long as they detect your hand on that steering wheel. No one is selling the HAL 9000. For liability, if a collision occurs between two autonomous cars, I think the only economically viable answer will be a no-fault, shared responsibility approach. I don't see automakers bringing autonomous cars to market en masse if they would potentially be on the hook for every accident their cars are involved in. However, I did read a very thought-provoking article recently considering the question of how the authors of autonomous car software will resolve the Trolley Problem. The best answer seems to be to allow the driver to configure in advance how the car should handle such a scenario, but even that has its problems.

And frankly I wish a lot of other drivers on the road were rocking driverless cars, and they probably do too. If you don't enjoy driving and instead see it just as a necessary inconvenience to achieve your end of getting where you want to go, and especially if that perception causes you not to give driving the attention and respect it deserves, then you should absolutely be in a driverless car. The reality is that that describes a huge chunk of the population, which is perfectly fine. I don't get any enjoyment out of things that other people do as hobbies, and that's ok too. One downside to mass adoption of autonomous cars (in addition to insurance companies needing to downsize due to reduced accident rates) will be that as "regular" cars become less desirable overall, they will get more expensive to buy (and insure), and that may well be amplified in the performance segment. Or maybe performance cars will be the only non-autonomous cars left because why would anybody want to drive their own boring econobox? But actually even in the performance segment I can see the case for autonomous functionality, since after all there's no enjoyment to be had creeping your performance car through stop and go traffic.

ShakeNBake

Have you tried to buy a 100K+ Merc OR BMW lately? What features are they pushing?

ezdriver

This thread got me to thinking of the scene in iRobot when the Will Smith character jumped on his gas-powered motorcycle to get er done....

TurboDogue

Isn't this really a case of the smartest, most intelligent of society helping all us idiots by making decisions for us and making our lives safer?

I recall two songs on the same LP (thats vinyl for you guys under 40), Red Barchetta that deals with this notion of petrol car obsolescence and Witch Hunt: "the righteous rise to save us from ourselves"...Laugh, but its where we are heading on this self driving issue. Those who promote it, want independent driving to be illegal. All in the name of public safety.

I hope Tesla goes bankrupt, as their CEo as quoted as saying he believes driving someday will not be needed anymore. Well sir, you can keep your car. For me, driving a car that has no exhaust note (i.e. electric) is like having sex with a woman who just lays there and doesnt make a peep.....just saying....I prefer both to scream in ecstasy.

Sorry didnt mean to hijack the thread

Maverick1

What rock have you been hiding under, the technology is here now my friend.
It's coming and coming sooner rather than later.
And since the governments are collecting less and less from fuel taxes because cars are getting better fuel economy, they are in the process of coming up with other strategies for taxing us.
One is to "pay by the mile". Make it mandatory for all cars to have a transponder which monitors how much we drive and charges accordingly.
If you haven't noticed in the last decade after 911 our freedoms are being taken away from us slowly but surly.
A sad state of affairs.
How do you like having to almost get strip searched at the airports, or going through harmful screening machines.
By the way I highly recommend never going through the new body scanning machines, it's like getting 10 dental x-rays in one shot.
Sorry for the rant.

neanicu

Unfortunately,those that are giving into new technologies like PDK will be the first to give into self driving cars. Tesla has " INSANE " mode. Does that sound like marketing? And many love it.
Us luddites will fall last. They'll use pry bars and pliers to pry the stick out of my cold dead hands.