Slithr

Saki GT

This is why we need an autonomous people mover to get into and out of the city for work, and a real car for the weekends, with a manual.

berny2435

True that. If I end up moving somewhere that has terrible traffic, I'll certainly be considering a Golf R with DSG for a daily.

I will say that my E36 M3 is pretty descent in traffic. much better than a S2000 b/c it has better torque to keep it moving at low rpm crawls and takes less rpm to slip the clutch.

The Gasman

Once i got stuck on the 405 in my s2000 in severe traffic. After 30 minutes of crawling my knee strated to throb so i exited and hung out for an hour till traffic subsided.

berny2435

It's amazing how many people I piss off that are behind me in traffic bc I will leave many car lengths bt I and the person in front of me so I don't have to clutch in and out as much. idiots thinking that they are going to get somewhere faster by hugging someones tailpipe

neuronbob

The manual transmission has been "dying" since the 1960s in the U.S.. However, it's still here.

The fact is that most Americans don't want to be involved in their driving, thus we have automatics instead of manuals, lane departure warning and lane keep assist instead of paying attention to the lanes, blind spot assist instead of properly adjusting mirrors, rear (and sometimes front) cameras instead of using our eyes to park.....the list goes on.

Personally, I think Americans are ready for fully automated cars.

However, the true driving enthusiast will continue to appreciate a manual. I own two manual transmission cars and daily drive one. Modern manuals are easy to drive in rush hour traffic--the manual in my CTS-V wagon does half the work of shifting for you and the car has so much torque that I don't need to use the accelerator to shift in stop and go traffic. I appreciate the dual clutch automatics but will try to always have a traditional manual in my driveway. I so pls to pass the craft down to my son when the time comes.

Chuck S

Every time I visit the UK (or Ireland for that matter) I have to rent a luxury car to get an automatic. Driving on the wrong side of the road is bad enough, the darn gear box is backwards too. Low should be near my kneecap, not on the other side of the car! I'll put up with it in Australia because the cities and roads are more and there are some wonderful V8s available there.

I expect UK visitors would have the same problems in North America -- if you could rent a stick here. Doubt they're available.

Commuting in a stick shift car can be horrible. I tire of rowing myself thru morning and evening traffic. The S2000 seems to have enough torque to minimize shifting. My wife broke down and go an automatic last time because of traffic in the morning. Loved her Civic SIs but...

-- Chuck

czechchamp

I commute in Houston traffic in '13 si and we all know the transmission options that car comes with. 95% of the time I wouldn't have it any other way. Dual clutches are incredibly boring to me regardless of how much faster they shift. I'm glad that BMW still offers a proper manual in F series M3/M4s.

vader1

I have an auto in the 328i with flappy paddles. It is not a dual clutch but it is still a very fast transmission. I find myself RARELY using the paddles because modern autos are becoming full of ratios. 8 spd autos need lots of gear swapping with the paddles and the computer does it so seamlessly that even the paddles lose their fun. I will go paddle only mode once in a blue moon for fun, but only use the paddles now to generally drop down two gears or so in anticipation of a passing opportunity before nailing the gas, and then a couple flicks back up to cruise, but everywhere else let the auto do the work.

I am glad I have a manual in the summer in the Honda but I do appreciate the Bimmers auto because winter driving here is all stop and go traffic jams, and as someone said before, turns a manual into a joyless chore.

I will always appreciate the fun of a manual though and the extra control it gives you. My next car is going to be a Cayman and it will probably be a 10 year + car for me and take me right into retirement. Ten years from now manual may be all but gone. Lots of people say that "go PDK" because it is really the future. I think we will very well find that the last remaining true sports cars with manuals will be the valuable collector goldmines of tomorrow. I fully expect that when current generation Cayman/Boxsters are old enough to be a "classic" that manuals will command a large price premium over a PDK even though they will be slower cars.

EastS2k

I am always going to have a manual in my stable.

I think that porsche made a big mistake completely axing the gt3 manual. They even said they made a manual 991, why not offer it for sale as an option? If they love pdk so much make it their 'default' transmission with the manual as an option. Not to mention the gt3 manual was and still is considered one of the best manual transmissions. I don't see why they couldn't dedicate a small corner in the factory for MT installations/ development.
Not everyone buys cars to have the fastest track time or 0-60 time, I always wanted a GT3 just for the driving dynamics and the joy of taking it out on the weekend/ rowing some gears... now I have to look for a new dream car or settle for a used variant. To be honest porsche was one of the true last man standing enthusiast brands out there, but to axe the manual from the gt3 and most likely the coming gt2 is a big slap in the face to a big part of the fan base.

Whatever I am done with my rant, I better be able to purchase a nice manual sports car equivalent to a gt3 in the future or I will be pissed....