What's this?
The timing of this one really could not have been better. Porsche GB invited us to drive the new
Doppelkupplungsgetriebe version of the once-again-six-cylinder 718 Boxster GTS 4.0, the very week we were already testing the manual-gearbox-equipped variant of exactly the same car. Aside from the fact that the PDK was a German-registered LHD example in Gentian Blue with smoked-grey alloys, and the manual GTS was a UK-plated RHD car in Carmine Red with black wheels (which we'd say was a more eye-catching and overtly sporty combination when viewed from a distance), the only differences between these two cars relate to how many pedals are in the driver's footwell and how many cogs are sequestered away in the casing of the gearbox.
We'll be bringing you a full and in-depth review of the manual 718 Boxster GTS 4.0 in the coming weeks, but for now allow us to say that it was sensational. Magnificent. A triumph of sports-car engineering and about as fine a roadster as roadsters are ever going to get. Come on! Seriously?! You're talking about a mid-engined, normally aspirated Porsche with 400hp, six cylinders and the sort of chassis know-how that only Zuffenhausen seems to master - precisely how
good do you think the 718 GTS 4.0 is going to be? That's right, it's sublime. But there is one teensy-tiny problem with it, especially for those of us who don't have easy access to a convenient Autobahn (i.e., anyone in the world but Germans): the gearing is stupidly long.
We've found this on a lot of 718s, including the old
four-cylinder GTS, but perhaps more pertinently on the two ultimate 718s which share the uprated 420hp version of this 4.0-litre flat-six engine, namely the
thrilling Spyder and the absolutely gobsmacking
718 Cayman GT4. As wonderful as this lump is and as nape-tinglingly good as it sounds at the redline, when it is mated to a six-speed manual gearbox then it can easily do illegal speeds in second gear alone. Which means you can't really access the best of the six-pot 718s on UK roads, without fear for your licence.
So the PDK might help with this. It has seven gears instead of six, for starters, and they are shorter through the various ratios as a result. Of course, you lose the tight-of-throw gearlever in the cabin and the clutch pedal to go with it too, which will have most driving purists moaning about a 'loss of interaction', but as you can potentially drive a 718 Boxster GTS 4.0 manual on a challenging road using nothing other than third gear, might the PDK genuinely be (whisper it) the better gearbox option here?
How does it drive?
Astonishingly, the answer to our poser at the end of the previous section of this piece is 'yes, it is'. We won't go into chapter and verse on every aspect of the GTS 4.0 today, because we'll save it for the review to come on the manual. But it's safe to say it is magical in every respect other than the long gearing. The noise of it, the speed of it, the glory of the handling on it, the surprising comfort of it... all quite outstanding and quite phenomenal. True, the 718's analogue interior looks old-school now compared to the digitised cabins of Porsche's newer products, but there are plenty of people who will actually prefer the simpler and easy-to-read layouts and gauges of the Boxster, while there can be no faulting the ergonomics of the cabin in the slightest - the driving position, for instance, is absolutely spot on. Similarly, the weighting and judgement of all the major controls is as marvellous as you would expect of Porsche.
So, buy a 718 GTS 4.0 with either gearbox available and you're going to enjoy all of the above to an immense degree. Therefore, the nitty-gritty comes down to whether the dual-clutch transmission enhances this jewel of a car in the right circumstances. And that's where we reckon it does. There are plenty of the on-paper metrics improved by having the faster-reacting PDK, complete with its Launch Control functionality and the Sport Response button in the middle of the mode dial on the steering wheel: for instance, 0-62mph is dealt with half-a-second quicker in the PDK, with an exactly four-second sprint, while it remains ahead of the manual for 0-100mph (8.7 seconds versus 9.2 seconds) and 0-124mph (13.7 seconds versus 14.1 seconds); it's cleaner, to the tune of 16g/km of CO
2; and it's more economical, recording an average 28mpg combined WLTP compared to the six-speed GTS's equivalent stat of 26.4mpg.
The manual fights back by dint of it being 30kg lighter than the PDK model, having a 3mph higher top speed with a 182mph maximum, and by being cheaper - PDK requires another £2,303 to be added onto a car which costs £66,340 basic as it is. Nevertheless, once you've experienced them back-to-back on a really technical and interesting route, you'll realise it's the PDK which asks for more thought and involvement from its driver. Just because it's an 'auto', of sorts (it still has clutch plates, when all's said and done, and not a torque converter), doesn't mean it's a great car ruined. While there's marginally less physical effort demanded by clicking a (slightly too small) upshift paddle on the right-hand side of the steering wheel than there is depressing the clutch pedal in the footwell and moving a lever with your left hand, the reality is the closer-stacked ratios of the PDK allow for more gears to be in play on a scintillating B-road. You'll use second, third and fourth, and maybe even dip into fifth on occasion because changes are so rapid, whereas in the manual you'll be in second and third alone; and, in the case of our test route, we could even theoretically have put the six-speed 718 Boxster GTS 4.0 into third and just left its lever there for the entire 15-mile journey.
So that additional spread of useable ratios requires you as the driver to put some more consideration into which is the right gear to be in for a given corner in the PDK, which better immerses you in the process of extracting speed from that 4.0-litre engine. Not only that, but as twin-clutchers go the PDK is one of the best in the business, bar none. We've already said that the shift paddles themselves, while lovely to the touch and metallic in feel, are maybe a gnat's too small, but you can operate the transmission on them and it will very rarely baulk at any up- or downshifts you ask it to make - provided you're not being deliberately provocative and trying to smash it down four cogs into second when you're travelling along at a lick in sixth. It's great in its 'manual' operation like this, yet it's also just as wonderful if left to its own devices, where it responds crisply and rapidly to changes in throttle angle, quickly selecting the correct gear for the driver's demands and urgently surging the Boxster forward on a sonic wave formed by that wondrous six-cylinder snarl.
And then it also better soothes away the daily grind of driving in traffic. The PDK is totally unobtrusive in town and city environments, while it slickly shuffles up into top as soon as it can on the motorway without the car's occupants perceiving any changes in cogs at all. Better still, it's a more relaxed cruiser, as it holds 2,400rpm in seventh at a steady motorway pace while the manual is revving a touch more frenetically at 2,800rpm in sixth. Therefore, as the PDK is more fun when you want it to be and yet also superior for the everyday duties the 718 Boxster GTS 4.0 must perform, it's hard not to conclude that for this magical 400hp mid-engined masterpiece, you really ought to be spending £2,303 on the automated transmission if you want the finer all-round motoring experience.
Verdict
Barely a few days since we advocated selecting a no-cost-option seven-speed manual gearbox instead of the eight-speed PDK on a
model of Porsche that's not the most focused thing in its particular line-up, it might look spectacularly contrarian of us to suggest that the 718 Boxster GTS 4.0 - which is, to reiterate, one of the greatest mid-engined sports cars of all time and a machine offering gigantic amounts of driver reward and enjoyment - requires some opposite thinking when it comes to transmission selection at ordering time. Especially as, in this instance, there is a fiscal difference between the manual and the PDK variants.
And if the manual 718 GTS 4.0 had more reasonable gearing in its 'box then we wouldn't even be having this conversation. However, it'll do 84mph in second gear and we reckon that doesn't allow you, on the public highways at least, to safely access the very best of what that mid-mounted powerplant can do. The PDK isn't exactly a huge amount 'shorter', as it doesn't rip through its lower gears in a flurry of revs and mere seconds, but there's enough in it that the interactivity levels are increased by fitting the seven-speed transmission here, even though it has fewer pedals. That it also brings all the usual PDK attributes, such as faster acceleration, better use of fuel and improved refinement for motorway cruising, to the GTS 4.0's party as well just means we have to conclude with what is normally anathema to petrolheads: when it comes to this sensational six-cylinder 718, automatic is best.
Interior Ambience
