I grabbed this off another mailing list, but figured it might be of
interest to SOL members.
(A two page ad from The Independent on Sunday.
That first question keeps haunting me.)
Introducing one of the greatest German
thinkers since Kant, Schiller and Goethe. A gearbox.
Can some of Germany's most celebrated thinkers
seriously be compared to a gearbox?
Why not?
Kant believed in the freedom of Man to make his
own decisions.
Likewise the new Tiptronic gearbox on the Porsche
Carrera 2.
For the first time on a production car, the driver
has a choice of using either four speed clutchless
manual or fully automatic gear selection.
Move the gear lever into manual and you can
effortlessly change gears up or down by `tipping'
the lever forwards or backwards.
Or the car can choose one of five automatic
programmes. (Five? Well, it is a Porsche.)
By monitoring the car's speed, revs, cornering
forces, even how vigorously you use the throttle,
it decides what kind of driver you are.
Then it matches the timing of the gear selection
to your driving style. As a result, the Carrera 2's
ability to think on the driver's behalf is quite
uncanny. `Almost telepathic' is how one magazine
described it.
Schiller, in his poem "Ode to Joy," might easily
have included a few lines about the Tiptronic
transmission if he were writing it today.
After all, the gearbox allows the driver to feel
exalted whether in automatic in city traffic, or
in manual on the open road.
However, Porsche engineers haven't forgotten
that the Carrera 2 Tiptronic is still very much
a 911.
As if to make their point, they have endowed
the Carrera 2 with the most powerful normally
aspirated engine ever put into a 911.
And thanks to the retractable rear spoiler and
the smoothed-out under floor panels, it is even
more aerodynamic than its predecessors.
(Goethe's main theme was Man's search for
happiness. Pity he isn't around to test drive
this car.)
Patently then, the Carrera 2 Tiptronic is a
car well worth thinking about. Although that's
assuming, of course, the car hasn't already made
up your mind for you.
smith@canon.co.uk
...uunet!mcsun!ukc!uos-ee!canon!smith
- Dale
|