[AquilaNoctis]

Ah yes, the spirit of youth. You could easily live to be 100, and who knows what things will be like by then.

I can imagine it now.

The streets will be silent, self driving electric cars whizzing around making the world a better place. Suddenly, the roar of a V8, it can be heard for miles. Tires squealing, the smell of burning rubber in the air.

Everyone will know when I am going to bingo.

[JetBlast77]

Automatics make a lot of sense if you live in the big city and your daily commute goes like this. Clutch in, clutch out, repeat 1000 times and you're at work. I'd LIKE to have a choice. But the auto choice needs to be better. It needs to pop off smooth clean fast shifts with better ability to dissipate heat. It's still shifting yourself if you want, you just do it with the flappy paddles.

[WhyUMad1LE]

The clutch in the Camaro is not heavy at all like you might expect in a car this powerful, very easy in traffic.

[Nor Cal ZL1]

Originally Posted by whiteboyblues2001

That's a false analogy. First, most anyone can learn to drive a stick in an afternoon, and be really good at it by driving it every day for a couple of days. You can learn to heel-toe in a couple of weeks of practice. You can't learn to play guitar in an afternoon, and be Jimi Hendrix in a couple of weeks.

Second, a guitar string can be bent, hammered on, pulled off, slide up, slide down, etc., and those things give the artist more degrees of freedom to accentuate the music, like vibrato as one example. The guitar hero guitar does not support those activities (other than a whammy bar). But the only effect that the manual has on the performance of the car is to make it a bit slower. It doesn't give you any extra capabilities that the auto doesn't.

Keep in mind, many of the first cars you had to manually adjust the distributor timing while driving using a lever. Then came vacuum advance, centrifugal advance, etc. Then came electronic ignition. A manual lever to adjust the timing gives the driver more control, and is more engaging, and takes more skill. But do you want to have to adjust the timing while driving because it is more involving and takes more skill to drive? Probably not.

Shifting can be fun. And I hope that car companies continue to offer a manual in their performance models. But let's not over hype what a manual has to offer the driver. It lets you row through the gears while making you slower.

The point is the youth want everything to be easy, and easy is better. Well that is not always the case. Tap shift eliminates a pretty decent amount of skill at racing speeds and concentration, while doing so also eliminates involvement and satisfaction of doing something well. Any one can tap shift and play rockband guitars, not many can heal and toe and at track at the edge of control, or play Hendrix, or Randy Rhoads.

I like things that are involving, it would be really fun to drive an old race car with some of those features, or hell even a pre syncro 50's racer. I have had cars difficult to master before. When you get it right, one of the best feeling to be had, compared to todays fairly numb, over nannied cars we drive today.

[Corner carver]

[QUOTE=AquilaNoctis;9548669]I can imagine it now.

The streets will be silent, self driving electric cars whizzing around making the world a better place. Suddenly, the roar of a V8, it can be heard for miles. Tires squealing, the smell of burning rubber in the air.

Everyone will know when I am going to bingo.[/QUOITE]

Ha! Me and you both!

[c4racer]

Originally Posted by AquilaNoctis

I can imagine it now.

The streets will be silent, self driving electric cars whizzing around making the world a better place. Suddenly, the roar of a V8, it can be heard for miles. Tires squealing, the smell of burning rubber in the air.

Everyone will know when I am going to bingo.

Rush released a song about this in 1981. One of my favorite songs and one I think about as the world heads More and More towards this reality and I am firmly stuck in the past !!

[c4racer]

Originally Posted by WhyUMad1LE

The clutch in the Camaro is not heavy at all like you might expect in a car this powerful, very easy in traffic.

I find stick cars easier to drive in stop and go traffic. I can coast along, leave it in N, don't use the brakes as much, often can crawl along in 1st gear. I guess Ive been doing it for so long it's become second nature and I prefer it to an auto trans.

[Norm Peterson]

Originally Posted by JetBlast77

It's still shifting yourself if you want, you just do it with the flappy paddles.

Still not the same.

A polite upshift or downshift request to the PCM that then takes over and commands whatever needs to be done is not nearly the same as physically moving the actual transmission components yourself that disengage the gear you're about to leave and engage the gear you're going for. But FWIW, I'd pick a floor-shifter with a + / - or some other sort of pattern for manually commanding AT shifts over paddles every single time. This applies to DSG-type gearboxes as well.


The same old argument that "the automatic is faster" continues to be trotted out every time this topic resurfaces. And it doesn't convince me that I should want an AT in my cars any more now than my own independent understanding almost 50 years ago did back then, and we haven't owned an AT car since the early 1970's. I really would rather drive the 15-second Maxima in my sig with its 5MT than anybody's 12-second automatic, 69 year old knees that don't quite bend like they used to and all.

Yes, AT's are getting better at road course running, as the 'Ring video with the A10 has demonstrated. But here's the key - if I turned three second faster lap times on a 1:20 course just by changing the transmission to an automatic that still wouldn't have made me better as a driver, and if I tried to claim that it did I'd only be kidding myself.

This supposed 'macho-ness' about driving stick? Silly thought. It's just the way some cars work. The greater involvement is its own reward.


Norm

[Nor Cal ZL1]

Originally Posted by c4racer

I find stick cars easier to drive in stop and go traffic. I can coast along, leave it in N, don't use the brakes as much, often can crawl along in 1st gear. I guess Ive been doing it for so long it's become second nature and I prefer it to an auto trans.

True, and I am much more concerned about getting rear ended by the phone in their lap drivers than operating a manual in traffic.

[fastball]

I will take a manual over an automatic in heavy city traffic every day and twice on Sunday.

If you're constantly shifting up and down try feathering your gas pedal gently as traffic moves. Instead of keeping up with the "stop and go", give the guy in front of you a few car lengths and go slow. You'll find you can stay in one gear longer, and when you really get the hang of it you won't mind traffic so much!

[camaroalltheway]

Originally Posted by JetBlast77

Automatics make a lot of sense if you live in the big city and your daily commute goes like this. Clutch in, clutch out, repeat 1000 times and you're at work. I'd LIKE to have a choice. But the auto choice needs to be better. It needs to pop off smooth clean fast shifts with better ability to dissipate heat. It's still shifting yourself if you want, you just do it with the flappy paddles.

I have had the best times of my life driving manuals - but its time for the auto due to my bad back - I certainly don't miss pumping a pedal 1000 times a commute just much more of a luxury feel.

[MotownBoy]

Wow; had no idea I would get this much response.

Interesting; when I bought my 1962 T-Bird new in 62 I got an automatic. At that point I was in the midst of a 7 year run as a truck driver for the Detroit New & had my fill of sticks in the trucks. Later, post driving in snow/ice I really missed the sticks. So my last two fun cars, 350 Z & CTS Coupe have been sticks. Ditto the 2SS on the way. Whimps in Sacto area, proceed at your own risk when you see a Hyper Blue Metallic rolling up next to ya! LOL.

[ron scubadiver]

The reality is all high end cars now come with some kind of an automatic either an updated torque converter unit, or a dual clutch transmission.

[My87z28]

Some of these A8 guys are a little full of themselves. Yes, I know a good driver vs a good driver that the A8 will beat the M6. However, I've seen tons of you at the track running mid to upper 12's. Don't think for a second that a good driver in an M6 won't gap your behind if that's all you can manage.