While automatic manual transmissions have become extremely popular on modern cars, and especially in racing, their appeal was far more limited in early applications. Porsche, as they are wont to do, was an early pioneer in the development of such systems, debuting their Sportomatic transmission in 1968. Dubbed by Car and Driver as a “nifty answer to a question seemingly no one was asking,” the Sportomatic did away with the clutch pedal in favor of a torque converter, though it still required the driver to do the shifting. As an early prelude to today’s PDK, the Sportomatic seems more like an interesting engineering exercise more than anything else, but nonetheless 911s do still exist showcasing this quirky transmission. We don’t feature very many of these – in part because there aren’t many that come up for sale given their relative lack of popularity – but from time to time and interesting example comes up. While the Sportomatic was available up until 1980 we almost never come across one attached to the impact bumper 911s, which makes this one all the more interesting. Here we have a 1976 Porsche 911 Coupe with only 11,787 miles on it and that 4-speed Sportomatic transmission. The seller doesn’t tell us this 911’s original color, but during restoration it was repainted in Geyser Grey Metallic.
