Lee Sibley
At last, fate has permitted me to spend some lovely bunce on upgrading my 996 Carrera, rather than draining my wallet just to maintain it. That meant this month I was able to indulge in a new shifter.
I’d highly despised the 996’s factory shifter from the day I bought the car. It wasn’t aesthetically or ergonomically pleasing, and looked pretty manky after 23 years of hard use by some seven different owners (and associated friends!).
The balsa wood shifter first fitted to the 908 and 917 race cars – and latterly the Carrera GT – has always captured my imagination, not just for its look and feel but also its historical significance. As I’m hoping you’ve come to realise, this fits in with the overall vision behind my 996 project. An original balsa wood number is quite obviously off the cards, but plenty of companies out there offer a variety of alternatives. I plumped for a wooden shifter and adapter from Stuttgart Classica, the wooden shifter itself being made from recycled skateboard decks, which I thought was pretty cool.
Its finish is exquisite, and the stainless adapter shaft completes the clinically clean look. Fitting was simple too: the metropole blue leather boot and shifter is all one piece, so I removed the lot then cut the boot near the top to reuse it for my new wooden shifter. A couple of grub bolts affixed the adapter to the factory short shift kit already fitted, and then I simply screwed the wooden shifter on to the adapter, securing it with a bit of Loctite.
I am super thrilled at the new look, and think the wooden shifter complements my MOMO mod.7 steering wheel perfectly. The shaft is slightly longer than factory, which cancels out a little bit of the factory short shift as the throw is made a little longer from the top, but otherwise it’s a super addition to Little Irish.
After getting through months of big maintenance bills, I’m now excited to continue indulging in more upgrades on Little Irish this year, completely ignoring the fact that it appears my clutch is about to expire…