New:  Vasek Polaks's Sportomatic Gets a New Owner and Lease on Life (Updated 11.2.04)
New: A Sportomatic Speedster?  (Updated 11.2.04)
New: Early Sportomatic Manual Images  and an original 1971 publication "Porsche.  A love story."
New: John Shingleton joins Patrick and the Redwood Region PCA crew for a breakfast run to Dillon Beach in Marin County California (4/2004)

New:   San Rafael; A nice neighborhood in Marin County north of San Francisco Bay (June 6, 2005)

 

Driving the Sportomatic: We love it.  Some people confuse this with an automatic transmission.  It is not.  It is more properly described as an automatic clutch.  It has a manual gear box and a pretty normal shift lever and manual shifting pattern.  You still have to shift gears yourself, you just do not have to concern yourself with a clutch pedal.  You and you alone decide when to slip into another gear.  Once you decide, you grab the gearshift, shift, and release, all faster than you can read that previous sentence.  No clutching necessary.  When driving fast and hard over twisty roads this makes it effortless to stay in whichever gear you most desire, even after hours of driving, you never get tired.   In traffic and stop-n-go City driving the Sportomatic is a dream.  With a torque converter and the gearing Porsche dreamed up for this car you can leave it in second gear and go anywhere from a dead stop to 45 mph comfortably without changing gears.  Parallel parking on hills without worrying about burning the clutch is another bonus.  If you want to make a quick getaway from a stop light, drop it into low, tromp on the gas pedal and the car positively streaks away just like you would expect of a Porsche.  Sportomatic History: Sportomatics were produced from 1968 to 1979.  sportomatic production numbers (with thanks to Frans Smits of the Netherlands!).   In early 1972 there was a change to the 915 transmission to handle the more powerful engines.  Although primarily fitted to 911's, a few 914 Sportomatics were also built.  For more on these rare birds read Frank Pohl's 914-6 sportomatic information .  A quick read of most publications and books will reveal very little positive information.   I was amused by the misinformation, blatant contradictions and latent nationalism I found doing a  literature review pertained to regional differences is sales (excerpt below) ... The car was actually much more popular in Europe.  Sports Car Graphic probably summed up the opinion of most Americans on the Sportomatic by writing, “Give me stick shift or give me death.”  Denis Adler “Porsche 911 Road Cars”  The two-pedal cars had a hard time from those reared on the macho image of the sports car driver rowing up through the gears, but the cars proved popular, especially in the US where up to 25 per cent of the 911s were Sportomatics.  Peter Morgan “Originial Porsche 911”  Reviewing the magazine literature at the time the Sportomatic was introduced shows some decided differences of opinion.  Here are some early positive articles (1968, 69 and 71) about the Sportomatic , and some not-so-positive (1968 and ?).   Perhaps the best description and most balanced comments on the Sportomatic are included in Bruce Anderson's (http://www.911handbook.com) excellent 'Tips on buying a used Porsche: 911' where he describes the Sportomatic and its history in a little detail   "An interesting addition for the 1968 model year was the semi-automatic Sportomatic transmission. Porsche felt that none of their customers would really want to give up complete control of their transmission so instead of a total automatic they combined a torque converter, an automatic clutch and a four speed transmission. They took their excellent four speed transmission and added a torque converter and a vacuum servo controlled clutch. The torque converter was what could be considered a "loose" one with a stall speed of 2600 rpm The clutch was disengaged by the vacuum servo when it received a signal from the micro switch on the shift linkage, so that when you grabbed the shift lever the clutch would release, you could shift and when you let go of the shift lever the clutch would engage again. With the high stall speed of the torque converter you could be a very lazy driver with one of these transmissions starting out in second gears and shifting directly to fourth when the car came up to speed. Or if you wanted, the car could be driven quite aggressively using all four gears and it would give very little away to the other 911s with their more conventional four or five speed manual transmissions. 911s with these Sportomatic transmissions were a good solution for the people who still wanted a sporty Porsche, but spent quite a bit of their driving time stuck in commute traffic, because you could greatly reduce the amount of shifting necessary with this transmission. Unfortunately for the Porsche customers that liked their Porsche driving sans clutch this transmission was not an idea that really caught on in the U.S.A. and about ten years after its introduction Porsche ceased production of the Sportomatic . There are still some people that swear by the these transmissions saying that they offered the best of both worlds. It would be very difficult to pin down exactly when Porsche quit building the Sportomatic cars. The newest Sportomatic that I know of in the US is a 1980 911SC that belongs to a friend in the Porsche Club. 1980 was the last year that the Sportomatic transmission was listed as an option, even in Europe. However, I did notice at Le Mans in 1985 that the car that Wolfgang Porsche was driving had a four speed Sportomatic installed. The car was a was a Carrera Turbo-Look Cabriolet with the four-speed Sportomatic transmission, so it had to be either a 1984 or 1985 model. But then that is a very special case, isn't it. As nice as you may think these transmissions are you should really know what they are before you consider purchasing a 911 that has one. You should also know that they sometimes will effect the value of the cars and very often will make it difficult to make a quick sale of a car equipped with one of these Sportomatic transmissions." If you visit Rennlist (http://www.rennlist.org) and search through their archives you can find some interesting discussion about the transmission. (apologies, could not figure out how to link directly to the threads... so I have excerpted some of the comments here ...)  Sportomatic Maintenance: One concern owners and potential owners have is how do you maintain a Sportomatic , what special types of maintenance should you do to help the longevity of the device.  There is very little information out there, but in Porsche Excellence's Tech Notes II has this to say: "There is no special maintenance for the Sportomatic ; you just pray that it doesn't start leaking.  If the seals leak, they get oil on the clutch and it makes the clutch sticky so that it doesn't want to disengage.  Otherwise, the Sportomatic is a fine transmission and should give good service I'm not sure I would use synthetic oil in a car that old, especially one with a Sportomatic .  One of the problems I have seen over the years with synthetics is that they cause oil leaks in some of the older cars.  With a Sportomatic you don't want oil leaks.  " Our friends in Australia have been using synthetic oil in their later Sportomatic after checking with knowledgeable friends at Porsche with no ill-effect and it seems to even make the car run quieter.   We were surprised when our mechanic changed the oil recently and used synthetic oil but have noticed no ill effects and are keeping a close eye on it.   Since Sportomatics are dependant upon the engine oil it is important to keep it changed regularly and clean.  The Tech Notes II has the following general comments to make about early Porsches (most Sportomatics;) and the types of oil we should be using: "When the car was new, Porsche recommended single-grade oils for these cars, SAE 30 for the summer and either SAE 20 or SAE 20W-20 in the winter for temperatures from +5F to 32F (-15C to 0C), of SAE 10 for constant temperatures below +5F (+15C).  Normally, I recommend that you follow the suggestions in the owners manuals, but a lot has changed in the past twenty or so years. Porsche revised its oil recommendations for these early cars about ten years ago to a multi-grade oil.  The engines in these older cars were built for use with motor oils which were available at the time these cars were built.  Because these earlier oils were thicker than what is usually available today, the engines internal clearances were greater than the more modern engines built since the mid seventies.  Porsche also recommends not using synthetic oils in these early engines because of different types of seal and gasket materials used in them.   The cars affected by these updated recommendations are: the Type 356 (all 356, 356A, 356B, and 356C).  Type 912, Type 914-4 and 916-6 (and the 916), Type 901, and Type 911 through 2.4-liter models built in 1973.  The new recommendations are: For Summer or warm climates: SAE20W-50 SAE20W-40 SAE40 For Winter use and in cold climates: SAE 15W-40 SAE 10W-30 Porsche suggested you maintain the same specified oil change intervals that were recommended in the owner's manuals."         For fun (??) video clip: 911.mpeg (1952 kb)

Are YOU a ... Karen '71 911T  San Francisco Bay  John Shingleton '77  Sydney Australia.       Ken Ubsdell '72 Targa 911 T San Francisco    Berny Tester '71 Targa UK   Bryan Sheehan '70  911 T San Francisco Joseph Hahn  '68 911L Cleveland  <technical discussion>. Magnus Gustafsson   1968 Sweden,  Keith Evans 1971   Philadelphia            Bret 1968 911 L  Southern California         <off-site photogallery> Pete Spence '78 SC UK   Earl Green '73S 2.7  RS Oregon   Charlie Hutchinson   '72 911S Chicago Doug's Red 68:   <off-site photogallery>   Frank Pohl's 914-6 Germany             Enrico Allara's '69 911E Italy             Ron Bakkar Holland             Ian Knott '72 911 T New Zealand Chris' Vasek Polak '68 911L Washington State Rosie's Rare 911 Sportomatic Speedster Eric Maes' '78 911SC  Brussels/Belgium ... we would love to add  your sporto to the site,  please send any pictures  and text about you, your  car and what you think  about the Sporto and  we will do our best to  get it up here ...

email  Karen & Patrick

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