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dear Sir,

I am a regular reader of Total 911 and have been a Porsche fan for almost 30 years. I have recently converted a Porsche 997.1 from Tiptronic to manual and wanted to share this story.

Originally I am from Germany and owned most of my cars there, but several years back I relocated to Singapore. The only downside here is the speed limit and the fact that the car market is tiny. It’s a fantastic place to live, but not really the best place for a car nut like me.

There are very few manual cars around. For the ‘normal’ 997.1 or 997.2 C2 or C4 we have only a handful of manual cars. As importing used cars of that age is prohibited, the only option is paying a significant premium to get a manual car, live with the automatic transmission or try out a conversion.

For me the last one was the option of choice. After a long search for a suitable 997 and on a budget, I ended up with a fairly low-mileage, unmolested 2006 997.1 C4S Tiptronic with a renewed COE. So I took the plunge to convert my Tiptronic to a manual transmission.

Several months and a lot of grey hair later, the car is converted and drives as it should! The long time it took was not because it takes so much effort; it can probably be done in a few days provided you have everything together and know what you are doing. All parts are pretty much plug and play thanks to the smart production planning by Porsche. There are no invasive procedures or alterations to the chassis or mounting points, so, if you want to do it, you can always convert it back for originality. The biggest effort went into research, study of wire diagrams, talking to experts and sourcing and importing all the necessary parts.

I am thankful to everyone who helped on the way. I can now fully enjoy my 997 as a daily driver and also during the spirited drives up north to Malaysia with fantastic B-roads through palm oil plantations or rainforest… or once in a while on the Sepang track. Wow, this is some commitment to three pedals, oliver! We admire the effort you’ve gone to here. readers of Total 911 can expect to read all about the conversion in great detail in an upcoming issue, should others wish to do the same with their tiptronic cars.