The manual transmission is on its way out in today’s automotive world. The reason for this is largely due to the fact that automatic transmissions have become quicker and sales of cars with manual transmissions have plummeted.
The dual clutch transmission has allowed for an automatic (or semi-automatic) to be faster than a traditional manual transmission. Porsche makes one of the best dual clutch transmissions available with their PDK.
The Porsche 968 was a stop gap vehicle. At first Porsche had intended it to be the next evolution of the 944 as an S3. When it was decided that the German performance car maker would produce the mid-engined Boxster, the 968 took the place as the entry level vehicle for a short time until the roadster would be ready.
The 968 may have been a vehicle that was planned for a short production run, but it was the pinnacle of Porsche’s front-engined inline four-cylinder sports cars. With a 3.0-liter four cylinder in front the stock vehicle offered 236 horsepower and could launch from 0-60 mph in 6 seconds.
When you pay about $100,000 for a car it is hard to call it a bargain. However, when you buy a supercar that cost over $200,000 just a few years ago, that is quite a bargain.
There are two main reasons that the McLaren 12C has depreciated so quickly, newer more desirable models and reliability issues. The 12C was the first production road car for McLaren since the F1 of the 90’s and there will usually be some bugs in a first experimental attempt.
The Porsche 959 was the first true supercar made by the German car maker. Sure Porsche had made some very fast road cars, such as the 1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7 and the 911 Turbo. While very fast, they weren’t necessary supercars.
These special cars would be considered borderline supercars, but the first fully recognized production supercar made by Porsche was the 959. When the special vehicle was made it was so quick that Ferrari had to respond with another legendary supercar, the F40.
James Bond is known to drive some great, normally British, vehicles. However, in the mid-90’s Bond for the first time drove a non-British vehicle as his primary spy car, the German BMW Z3.
Not only was the Z3 not made in England, but it wasn’t incredibly fast. The model used for GoldenEye used an in-line four-cylinder engine producing just 138 horsepower. This resulted in a 0-60 mph time of 8.1 seconds. That won’t get you away from too many villains trying to kill you.