Porsche Developing Manual-Only 911 R?

BOLD RIDE

Copyright © 2015 Bold Ride LLC.

 

Posted by Jonathon Klein 

                               

 

As a company, Porsche has always taken an evolutionary approach to building cars. The 911 is a poster child for that gradual evolution. Recently, the 911’s evolutionary track has taken a few Porsche enthusiasts aback. Porsche has practically killed the manual transmission, and recently revealed that the 911 would also drop all normally aspirated motors in favor for turbocharged units.

 

But the 911 Carrera is Porsche’s crown jewel, and with many seeing the recently released Cayman GT4 as an alternative; the company has decided that it can’t allow the GT4 to become the heir to the throne. According to Road & Track, a recent rumor out of Stuttgart has Porsche getting ready to debut something purely for those 911 purists. A car dubbed the 911 R.

The 911 R is said to only come with a manual gearbox, and be powered by the 3.8-liter flat-six engine out of the new 911 GT3. Although, Porsche is using the GT3 motor, the 911 R will come with much less tire, giving it a more distinct personality.

 

The original 911 R was released in 1967, and was built to accompany the then-newly debuted 911 Carrera. Porsche developed them as lightweight racing versions, and they would go on to dominate tracks around the world for the next few years.

 This new car wasn’t built for racing, and is strictly a limited edition model. The Road & Track source states that the car will additionally have its weight reduced considerably, just like the original car.

As mentioned above, the 911 R will be a limited edition. That means possibly only 600 cars total will come with the 911 R badge. What’s worse though, according to the same source, all 600 cars have already been sold to those in the Porsche Preferred Program.
Hopefully, Porsche sees the demand and decides to build more.