Automobile Transmissions – The Porsche 4 Speed

After learning to drive a Model A Ford with a non-synchromesh manual transmission, just about anything becomes relatively easy.

When I was in College I had a 1964 Ford Falcon Futura convertible. It was a cute little car, made more so by bucket seats and a strong little 260 cubic inch Ford V-8 in front of a 4 speed manual transmission.

One day, while driving easily on San Pasqual Avenue to my summer job in Pasadena, I depressed the clutch to shift gears and nothing happened. The pedal just fell to the floor. At first, this was worse than being in the Model A with no synchromesh. I had no clutch!

However, by carefully matching vehicle speed and engine rpm like I learned to do driving the Model A, I did a reasonable job of getting from one gear to another by "sound and feel". The clutch had to be replaced, of course, but the transmission did not suffer, thanks to what I had learned earlier in the Model A.

Immediately after graduating from College I purchased a 340hp, 327cid Corvette with a 3.08:1 rear end and 2:20:1 Muncie 4-speed transmission. Like the Falcon, it also had a Reverse "lock-out" lever to keep an overenthusiastic gear change from going into Reverse (then the repair shop).

The Mucie also made a lot of noise. It produced a different pitched whine for each gear. The transmission noise might have been a bother, but most of the time I couldn't hear it over the solid lifter-equipped engine. A couple of years later I purchased a new 1969 Porsche 912 Coupe'. It had the standard 4 speed manual transmission.

The Porsche transmission was a direct opposite of the Model A and in another galaxy from the strong but clunky (and noisy) 4 speed transmissions in the Falcon and Corvette. It functioned the same way as the others, but getting there was completely different.

There was no "Reverse lock-out" like I had on the Falcon and Corvette. The 912 had a shift lever only, with the gear pattern designed into the top of the shift lever. At first the 912 Porsche shift lever felt imprecise or "sloppy". At first, I just didn't feel confident about where to move the shift lever to get it into the next gear. The two Fords and Corvette taught me a lot of good lessons, but finesse and precision engineering weren't on the list.

But Porsche had an excellent reputation for design and engineering – plus a basket of Manufacturer World Championships – so I just decided I'd work with it to see if I could get the feel of the "mushy" Porsche 4-speed.

It didn't take long. The transmission almost seemed intuitive. I was doing the shifting and clutch work, of course, but I wasn't telling the 912 Porsche what to do. It already seemed to know what to do. All I needed to do was work with it as a partner.

I did. As a matter of fact, I am driving the Porsche all over the country for road work for the various books and articles I'm writing about my adventures on the 1926 U.S. highway system.

After more than 42 years and two or three clutches, the 912's original transmission is still in the car. It has not even been rebuilt!

Sure, I could still drive a Falcon V-8 or Corvette. Or most anything else Detroit has to offer.

But I must say, with many years of driving it now behind me, the Porsche 4-speed transmission takes the idea of being in perfect control while driving to an entirely different level from the otherwise completely satisfactory American 4-speed transmissions I've owned.

It's kind of strange, really. On those rare occasions when I drive the 912 energetically, the more I ask of it, the more it seems to just giggle with delight.

I think somehow the 912 senses that it's more of a car than I am a driver.