German Car Zone

It's Doppel-rific!


By now you should know all about the wonders of the dual-clutch automated manual gearbox, a version of which is now offered for the 2009 Porsche Cayman and 2009 Porsche Cayman S. This box of wonders (and also gears) has variously been credited with raising the dead, changing the world of transmissions forever and ever and making a heavenly crème brulée.

That's pretty high praise for what is essentially just two gearboxes packaged into one box — one shaft full of gears is connected to clutch A, and the other shaft of gears is connected to clutch B. The magic comes from the way those two clutches swap drive power between them. Think of it like tossing a ball back and forth between your two hands — except that there's no ball or hands and no delay going from one to the other.

The dual-clutch automated manual transmission typically supplants a conventional automatic, and it delivers the convenient action of an automatic with the fuel-efficiency and drivetrain response of a manual. Also, dual-clutch systems tend not to embarrass their operators like the herky-jerky automated single-clutch transmissions do (we're looking directly at you, BMW SMG).

Predictably then, we will use the rest of this story to sing our hosannas to the Cayman's seven-speed dual-clutch unit, which we find easy to use, responsive and all-round excellent even if we'll never, ever, ever be able to pronounce its German name: Doppelkupplungsgetriebe.

PDK, PDQ

All right, Porsche won't make you pronounce the name when you order it up (for a hefty $3,420 charge). In fact, with sports car sales at subterranean levels, it'll probably be happy if you call it anything at all. Even Porsche shortens the name to "PDK" in casual conversation.

Here's the headline for the PDK-equipped Cayman S: It's the quickest Cayman of them all. It's quicker from zero to 60 mph by a full second than the 2008 Cayman S equipped with the old Tiptronic automatic (4.8 vs. 5.8 seconds). In fact, the 2009 Cayman S PDK is fractionally quicker to 60 mph than either the 2008 or 2009 Cayman S equipped with a manual transmission.

So we can see you're not surprised that the seven-speed PDK car is quicker than the old automatic. That's because the dual-clutch doesn't waste any time with upshifts, and there's essentially no interruption in torque delivery. Also the PDK incorporates launch control as part of the $1,320 Sport Chrono package. No special protocol or incantation required; just press the stability control button on the center stack, hold the brake pedal down and mash the throttle. A telltale "launch control" message lights up in the gauge cluster and you're off.

Like all dual-clutch transmissions on the market, the PDK can be set to either manual or automatic mode. To shift gears, you use the lever on the center console or the buttons on the spokes of the steering wheel. If we have one complaint about the PDK, it is these buttons — essentially rocker switches, really. Press the top portion of either the left or right button and the transmission upshifts. Press the bottom portion of either button for a downshift. We never got used to this and were saved the embarrassment of blowing up a motor a couple of times only by the electronics, which knew we didn't actually want a downshift to 3rd when we were topping out the engine speed in 4th gear. Shift paddles would be better.



2009 Porsche Cayman S First Drive on Inside Line


M

I love the new cocky attitude and appearance of the car, plus the new customization Porsche has introduced.