Sportomatic 911T Restored, Part 2: Sporto History
This article was originally written in November, 2020 by contributor Kevin McCauley. Click here for Part 1.
In the late 1960s, Porsche was looking for ways to expand the appeal of the 911. The Sportomatic — generously termed “an automatic” in Porsche’s own marketing materials — was an attempt to make the 911 easier to drive and more usable in increasingly-congested cities, all while retaining the sporting character of the 911. It failed on all counts, according to Car and Driver, who reviewed the Sportomatic-equipped 911 in March 1968. They criticized the confusing gear arrangement, found it unsatisfying to drive, and bluntly noted that, “being required to shift an automatic is a hard fault to overlook.”
But the Sportomatic had merits, uncovered by none other than racing legend Vic Elford. Before the new semi-automated transmission could go on sale, it needed development mileage, and entering an endurance race was cheaper than renting out the Nürburgring for several days of testing.
Porsche entered entered a pair Sportomatic 911 prototypes into the 1967 Marathon de la Route, a grueling 84-hour endurance race on the full Nürburgring circuit, equivalent to three-and-a-half 24 Hours of Le Mans events. In the end, ‘Quick Vic’, with co-drivers Hans Hermann and Jochen Neerspach, took the overall win in a Sportomatic-equipped 911R. They finished 960 kilometers ahead of second-place.
In this, the 911R’s biggest achievement — perhaps even the Porsche 911’s greatest-ever on-track success — was transmitted through a Sportomatic torque converter.
Elford’s connection to the Sportomatic even extended beyond motorsports, and during the late 1960s, his personal car was a Sportomatic-equipped 911S, which he used to tow his camper all over Europe – the torque multiplying properties made it uniquely well-suited to towing.
“The Sportomatic meant no clutch problems…I towed comfortably on the autoroutes, autobahns, autostradas in France, Germany, Italy at 75/80 mph!” Elford once recalled.
Sportomatic was offered between 1968 and 1980, at which point, the 911 became manual-only again, until Tiptronic arrived in 1990. During the ‘80s, customers seeking two-pedal driving were politely directed to try the 928.
Sportomatic Impressions
I had a whole blurb drafted in my head about how the Sportomatic was a rare instance of Porsche running down a technological dead-end. A failed technology. But I don’t think that’s accurate anymore.
When we look at the decades that followed the Sportomatic chapter in Porsche history, the ideology remained consistent throughout: a traditional automatic was unsuitable for the 911 driving experience, so Porsche needed to create something different. When an automated transmission returned to the 911 in 1990, it was in the form of Tiptronic, which gave the driver the groundbreaking ability to make gear selections, without a clutch, through the use of electronics. This idea was refined and developed until it was replaced by the now-ubiquitous dual-clutch PDK system, which allows drivers to select gears with more speed and more precision than any manual, and has helped to raise the performance of the 911 to new heights.
The Sportomatic didn’t directly evolve into PDK, but it was the first instance of Porsche sidestepping the traditional slushbox in favor of a new solution.
From inside the 911T’s bare-bones interior, I imagine it’s 1969, and think about how this technology might have been viewed by those who came across it. The Sportomatic could have been seen as the next evolution of the manual. You can shift gears when you want to, slow to a stop without stalling, and you never need to fuss with a third pedal: on paper, that sounds a bit like the behavior of the 911s Porsche sells today.
Stay tuned for Part 3 of this story.
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