It was great, I got to drive one and totally agree. But two things - the DCT in the R8 is pretty great as far as they go.  And while enthusiasts certainly bought some of them, I would venture to guess that a large number of people bought them for show and just bought whatever had better specs on paper.

The real reason the GT3 (and 911s in general) have manuals still is because they still sell well so it is worth the expense and hassle of building/certifying both. Their take rates for manuals are multiples higher than their competitors were when they last offered them.

Can you name a competitor to this car that DOES come with a manual?  Cause I can’t think of one. 

There’s just no point in buying them used. They lease VERY affordably for the price, you can get them all day long for 5k down/750 a month. You’d be paying something close to that for a 4 year old one on the used market (obviously purchasing not leasing) and would have no warranty to allow you to sleep at night.

It’s a 7-speed DCT built in conjunction with ZF. There is also purposely a lot of common parts shared between the PDK box and the standard 7 speed manual available in the 911/Cayman/Boxster.

No, he’s not right. If changing the gears is automatic, then it is an automatic.

You need to drive one to understand how different it is probably.  It drives like a delivery van with 500 horsepower.  If you take a corner at speeds that are no big deal in a Camry even, you will find yourself experiencing some insane body roll that actually gets scary at speeds which aren’t even that high.

Yeah I think the distinct lack of humor in it is what threw me off.

I’m not sure if this is some weird internet joke that isn’t very funny but it’s quite clearly not the case:

But it doesn’t.  It stands for Sport Leicht - which means: “sport, light.” 

I mean if you say mass market sports cars sure. But Ferrari, Porsche, McLaren are all experiencing some of their best years ever.

Exactly.  These cars are really pretty easy maintenance-wise.  I don’t happen to like the pre-2012 facelift interior but this thing is a good deal and seems to be well kept.  

6 Speed 996. Try to get a ‘99 as they had the dual row IMS. There’s no shortage of decent examples under 20k and they can fit booster seats in the back no problem.

I’m sorry the correct answer is Rubystone Red:

It just happens to be this model wasn’t equipped with it but most Porsches still have multifunction steering wheels with volume, etc on them. The nice thing is though that Porsche offers you options on what you want so you can choose which is more important to you.

I mean technically the Evo was created for DTM, but the 190E Cosworth in general was built to go rallying but never did because of the lack of AWD that Audi was dominating with by the time it was ready.  Based on that, he’s not wrong since there is no Evo without the OG 190E Cossie.

I’m just saying I lived in that DFW metroplex for 5 years and there’s nothing about it I would take over SoCal.

Asking for an ignorant friend (me) - can any car be converted to a flat-plane crank? What does that really mean it does?

2 things -

I can guarantee you these folks opted in to a TOU and PP that specifically allows this.  Tracking isn’t always about advertising, it’s how companies decide what features to implement, instrument a/b testing, collect data for modelling, etc.