The 963 Is Back, GT4 Goes 911, and Fake Paddle Shifters

Thank Our People Big shoutout to the crews putting in work this weekend. IMSA customer racing had JDC Miller taking 3rd overall, with GTD going to Manthey in 1st, Phorm and Wright's Motorsport rounding out 2nd. And over in Europe, the 24 Hours of Spa customer racing saw Lionspeed take the win in the GT3 R. Solid weekend across the board for the customer teams, and it's always worth pointing out how deep the talent pool is right now. The 963 Is Coming Back So we were wrong, and honestly we're happy about it. The 963 is confirmed for next year, which means Porsche is about to spend millions of dollars just to prove us wrong for talking trash. We'll take it. Still no Le Mans on the schedule though, which has us wondering out loud if the factory team is a little salty at the FIA and just decided to focus everything on IMSA instead. Pure speculation, but it's not a crazy theory given how things have played out. GT4 Goes 911 The new series taking over for GT4 is running a 911 instead of a 718 Cayman, and honestly the reasoning writes itself. The obvious one: the 718 Cayman isn't in production anymore, so you can't exactly build a race series around a car that doesn't exist. The less obvious one: it's another built-in opportunity for Porsche to sell more race-spec 911s. Curious what you all think about losing the Cayman as the entry point car for this class. Fake Paddle Shifters on the Taycan In "who asked for this" news, the 2027 Taycan is getting fake gear shifts, simulated paddle shifting, as a $1,000 option. We're not going to pretend we have a strong take here beyond mild bewilderment. It's a sign of where EV performance cars are headed as manufacturers try to recreate some of the physical feedback people miss from ICE cars. Leipzig Takes Over From Slovakia Also filed under "who cares but let's talk about it anyway," Porsche is shifting production back to Leipzig from Slovakia. Got us wondering if Porsche will ever actually build cars stateside. Our gut says probably not anytime soon, given how tied their manufacturing identity is to Germany, but we'll argue both sides of that one on the show. Get On the Fahren Waiting List If you haven't put your name down for Fahren yet, now's the time. Rally season creeps up fast and car prep should already be in progress if it isn't. Some of the summer rallies have already come and gone, but the big fall events are right around the corner. Our lineup is a mix of air-cooled and water-cooled cars, so there's room for both camps. Don't sleep on this one, you'll miss your shot to drive with a group of genuinely like-minded people. That's the show for this week. Head to pcartalk.com for event info, and if you want to support what we're doing, hit up Patreon.com/pcartalk. Find us at @pcartalk. Kimchi Crew: Steve, Leslie, Chris, Ken, Aaron, Matthew, Sean, and Nik.