[pieterk]

Lots of interesting perspective in this thread!

For what it's worth, I just got out of my 2007 Honda S2000, with, arguably, the greatest, fastest, most positive shifting transmission ever built in a production car, and I can attest that with a properly maintained, correctly built and installed 915, you can shift almost as fast. It feels markedly different, but if speed is the ultimate criterion, as many have said, with good technique, a 915 can shift very fast. Very, very far under 1 second, from almost any gear to any other gear, save into 1st on the track.

You can also do things with it that many people say you can't, like downshift into 1st gear while moving under regular, modest street loads at an appropriate speed for that gear (not track). I don't make a habit of it, but I can do it without trouble in my 911, like near the bottom of the northbound Lankershim offramp of the 134 on the way to TRE!

Granted, my current 915 is a fully blueprinted race box with short gears, spraybar, all Wevo and 930 bearings etc, and all Wevo/Stomski shifter assemblies, but my old, mostly stock 915 that blew up spectacularly on new year's day could also be shifted quite fast; well under a second. Some of it is technique, some of it is that the box is simply not so bad as people like to say it is.

I think the comments about it being vintage are valid too. Feel is an entirely different criterion from speed (of shifting). My old 912's shifter was like driving a tractor compared to even the sloppiest 915 shifter. As we move up the continuum from a 912 shifter to say an S2000 shifter, the 915 is still somewhere closer to the 912, but that feel--that delicacy of action and the care it requires--is part of what connects us as enthusiasts to the heritage and feel of these cars. I LOVE that everything takes effort in this car; LOVE IT! All the pedals require effort; nothing is soft; the gas pedal almost pushes back. It's brilliant! If we wanted numb, easy cars, we'd all be driving Camrys or S4s if we wanted a little speed with that numbness (which doesn't add up to much of a tactile sense of speed if you ask me, but that's veering off topic).

Yep, we could have better boxes, but then, we wouldn't be driving 911s with 915s. I'm happy with mine.