Porsche does a lot of things really, really well, but there are few things it does better than vehicle customization. You can have your Porsche pretty much any way you want it, with seemingly endless options and features to choose from. Some of them are better than others, of course. Stuff like fixed-back bucket seats does a hell of a lot more to the overall driving experience than the leather on your air vents, and some options are rather silly, like the $1,310 lightweight carbon-fiber windshield wipers we recently told you about. On my latest browse of the Porsche configurator, one of the options I noticed is so mind-numbingly cringeworthy that I had to stop what I was doing and tell you about it: the $340 911 Carrera T Puddle Light Projectors.
As it stands, the 911 Carrera T is the only way to get a non-GT3 model with a manual transmission, and in an effort to highlight what that means for the car, Porsche seems to think it’s a good idea to let all of the people who see you open your door at night know you’re a dweeb. What we’ve got here is a puddle light that illuminates from the bottom of the driver and passenger doors, showing the word Porsche spelled out with the H shift pattern of the T’s six-speed manual transmission below it. While it is undoubtedly cool of someone to buy a brand new manual 911 in 2025, it is incredibly uncool and cringy to advertise it in such a way.
This is also totally exclusive to the 911 Carrera T. Manual 718s can’t get it since they don’t have puddle lights built-in like this, and the only puddle lights you can get on a GT3 simply read “Porsche.” That’s also cringy, but not nearly as bad. It’s also not the only bit of cringe on the Carrera T’s exterior, as the same shift pattern logo is found as a sticker on the side quarter windows.
What sort of person buys this?
One of the most embarrassing things you can do in modern society is show off and bring unnecessary attention to yourself — that’s why I’m such a lowkey and subdued individual (please know this is sarcasm). I just don’t understand why anybody other than a complete dork would go through the lengths of spending somewhere between $150,000 and $175,000 on a very lovely Porsche with a wood grain manual shift knob and then sullying it with a $340 option that looks like something a teenager would buy on Alibaba and stick under his E90 328i. It’s in poor taste, is what it is.
I mean, you can’t be doing it for you. You’re the one who is driving the car. If anyone knows that you just drove a manual 911, it’s you! Hell, it can’t even really be for the people around you. Anyone who knows cars will know that every 911 Carrera T has a manual transmission, and if you don’t know that, you probably won’t be very impressed by a small light under some rich guy’s door, anyway.
Is this a lot for what amounts to a very inconsequential item on an otherwise brilliant car? Maybe, but in a world of ever-increasing cringe, we need to fight back in any way we can. Spend an extra grand, and get those carbon-fiber windshield wipers. That’s somehow more dignified.
