Fractions of a second simply don't matter, the feel of a car is what counts and I fought an unseemly battle with other hacks for the rights to a six-speed manual.

With a change so finger-light and simple, offering the resistance of an average rental car, it's almost no more work in traffic and pays off in spades on the back roads when a sudden change down can be used to alter the whole attitude of the car. Half the Turbos sold go with the automatic option, but even though it's faster, half of all Porsche drivers are missing out.

The manual box provides the freedom to keep that engine pulling hard from 4000rpm, where it feels at its near supersonic-best. Even then, the engine note is strangely muted and there is no sledgehammer blow to the back. This car offers a distant rumble more than a cascade of revs and smooth, linear, almost subtle applications of speed. But like a wave, it just kept coming until I invariably ran out of road.

In the corners, it subtly feeds just enough power to the front wheels to pull it around in response to aggressive entry, so the worst that will happen in the real world is that the nose will pull wide on slower bends.

An electronically controlled viscous clutch shares the horses out to the wheels that need them most and will have sorted the slide before the driver has had a chance to twist the wheel. So it's not the most exciting Porsche, but this four-wheel drive machine is brutally fast and allows a flat-out attack on foreign ground.

In high-speed corners, the downforce-generating rear spoiler will keep the Porsche pinned to the road and out the other side, especially with the adjustable damping system, PASM, switched firmly to Sport mode. But it's one of those cars that can cruise with the hood up at speeds of more than 170mph for hours on end on the right road as much as hug the apex on track.

My gunmetal grey machine came with a purple flip and those tell-tale yellow brake calipers that signify the Porsche Ceramic Composite Brake system not only removes brake fade from the equation, it also reduces the unsprung weight by about half.

But that's an irrelevance as the sophisticated driver aids swallow up that extra touch of feel at the apex offered by the lower mass, and the snappy nature of these race-bred brakes adds a nervous and unwelcome tone to proceedings.

The six-piston front calipers on the front and four-piston rears clamping on to 350mm discs all round are perhaps the surest way of stopping the car on a sixpence. But the relatively cushioned feel of the steel brakes still feels the more natural marriage for a road car.

Save the money, specify the red calipers that show the standard discs and realize how much more bearable they are in everyday life, which is where the Turbo invariably spends its time.