New Transmission Will Replace Tiptronic

For many years now Porsche has set

The 911 has overcome its unconventional layout to become the sports car of record. (Photo: Porsche Cars North America)

the sports car benchmark. Their engineering department has taken what is considered the worst layout for a sports car, a rear-mounted engine hanging out the back, and made it work to a degree that front- and mid-engined sports cars are often left in its dust.  Almost more impressive, however, the 911 doesn't compromise from the perspective of drivability, resulting in a car that can hang with everything from a Viper to a Ferrari on the racetrack but, on the way home, offers comfort, convenience features, reliability and fuel economy matched by few rivals. But as good as their current cars are, Porsche has one weak point: its less-than-sporting automatic transmission.

Shared with Volkswagen, the Porsche-developed slushbox is the well-known torque-converter equipped Tiptronic transmission. Outselling the manual by quite a margin, this automatic gearbox was one of the first manual-shifted automatics on the market, and while it was heralded as excellent and ingenious in its day, the onset of newer, more advanced (and simply bette

The dual-clutch DSG gearbox stands head and shoulders above the Tiptronic box with quicker, more positive shifts. (Photo: Porsche Cars North America)

r) technology has left it in the proverbial dust. Recognizing this, Volkswagen contracted BorgWarner to build a newer, better 'box for use in the various high-performance Audi models. What BorgWarner came back with was the Direct-Shift Gearbox, or DSG.

Sporting two clutches in place of the Tiptronic's torque converter, the DSG sequential-manual was greeted with open arms by the enthusiast community. Always engaged, the DSG unit uses an inner and an outer clutch to engage and disengage cogs. The outer pack drives gears 1, 3, and 5; while the inner clutch pack drives 2, 4, and 6. Using complicated electronic algorithms, the driver's selected gear is engaged by one clutch pack while the previous gear is disengaged by the other. The r

Everything from the Carrera GT-based GT1 racecar to the Cayman and Boxster could potentially use the new 7-speed 'box. (Photo: Porsche Cars North America)

esult is lag-free, seamless, predictable shifts that can be easily tuned for different situations by simply changing the clutch pack's modulation. Compared to the slow, jerky, and cumbersome Tiptronic gearbox, the DSG is light years ahead and miles better.

So, it makes logical sense that Porsche should choose to assimilate that technology at the first opportunity (especially now that they're a majority owner of VW group); which they did. But in grand Porsche over-engineering fashion, they've gone one better; quite literally. Developing their own variant of the DSG 'box, Porsche filed a pa

Porsche had hoped to release the new gearbox alongside the new 911 Turbo, but failed to do so. No release date has been announced. (Photo: Porsche Cars North America)

tent indicating the company will be unleashing the world's first seven speed DSG gearbox upon the public.

Expected to see duty in everything from the lowly (relatively) Cayman and Boxster models all the way up to the upcoming Carrera GT-based GT1 racecar, it turns out the development program is surprisingly far along, and Porsche apparently hoped to have had the gearbox completed for use in the new 911 Turbo.

This said, they haven't publisized even a tentative date of release, although, it an announcement is expected soon.