Porsche Shifts Swiftly to PDK

To some performance purists, a Porsche with an automatic transmission borders on heresy.

But many U.S. buyers of Stuttgart’s legendary sports cars apparently have gotten over it and are happy to drive Porsche AG’s new dual-clutch transmission, known as Porsche Doppelkupplungsgetriebe (PDK).

Launched last October in the U.S. in the ’09 911 and a few months later in the Boxster roadster and Cayman coupe, the PDK transmission has doubled the take rate for automatics in ...