A quicker way to 60
“Along with direct fuel injection, the new Porsche engines offer the new Porsche Doppelkuppling (PDK), available as an option. It’s a technology that first helped Porsche racing cars create a sensation on racetracks around the world in the 1980s. After years of painstaking development, its application in a street-legal 911 has come to fruition.
PDK, with both a manual gearshift and an automatic mode, has seven gears at its disposal. It is essentially two gearboxes in one and, as the name suggests, two clutches. Whenever a particular gear is engaged, the next gear in the other gearbox is always preselected. The result?
Gear shifts take mere hundredths of a second, and without any hint of interruption to the flow of power. PDK provides improved responsiveness and greater agility with more fuel efficiency.
In combination with the Sport Chrono Package Plus, PDK has a choice of two additional functions: Launch Control for optimum acceleration from a standing start, and a motorsport-derived gearshift strategy, bringing gearshift characteristics straight from the racetrack.”
Source: 2009 Porsche 911 Product Guide, page 10.