Twenty Years Early: How Porsche Built the PDK Before the World Was Ready

Sit in the 944 Turbo that Porsche used to develop its dual-clutch gearbox and the oddest thing in the cabin is the lever in the center console. There is a minus sign ahead of it and a plus sign behind it. Push forward for a lower gear, pull back for a higher one. No clutch pedal, no H-pattern gate, and a small display in the dash keeping track of which ratio you were in.

That car was running in the early 1980s. A Porsche customer could not order a 911 with that transmission until 2008. In between, the gearbox won a world championship, took a rally win on debut, and then sat almost untouched while the rest of the industry caught up.