Ferrari have just announced that the successor to their F430, the new 458 will not come with the option for a manual gearbox. They will be 100% clutchless. Demand for a manual transmission in their most recent release, the California, was less than 5% of total sales.

This got me thinking, if a group of so called 'purists' as Ferrari owners can give away their clutches and 6 speeds so easily, could the s2000 community also embrace clutchless transmissions?

Tell me, are clutchless transmissions so good now that eventually we'll see them on all sports cars, or are Ferrari owners just a bunch of lame posers who can't drive stick?

 

 

this

 

[QUOTE=Honda Life Dunk,Dec 17 2009, 04:13 PM]

 

i personally like them from experience and they might be better on a track vs. traditional manuals but i can't imagine them being fun going from home to work everyday.

they have an S with flappy paddle shifters. i don't think they're dual sequential but single.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTAbZQ4FmhU [/media]

 

i wouldnt give up my 6 speed personally, but i have always wondered what the S would be like to drive with a very good ferrari-style F1 gearbox...its amazing how fast those things can shift

 

i have feeling all performance oriented cars will have DSG or Lock Up (ISF) trannies in favor of manuals in the not so distant future. from a sales standpoint they can't justify building manuals if there is not a great need for it. with flappy paddles they can draw the regular buyer who could care less about a manual to the enthusiasts that can appreciate a transmission shifting at 1/10th of second with rev-matching on downshifts.

 

Regular MT are for those who love the art of driving.


Flappy paddle shifting are for people who don't give a sh!t for driving. They just want to be the fastest, even if it means just sitting
there and pressing the pedal.

 

This is what worries me the most - The thought that in the no too distant future it will be impossible to buy a brand new rear wheel drive sports car with a manual transmission.

One of the things I really love about the S2000 is that the engineers decided it performed best as a manual so that's how they made it, even if it cost them sales. I'm just not sure if new conservative Honda still has the balls for that approach

 

I think the "clutchless" gearboxes being referred to are actually electronically actuated single or dual clutch gearboxes.

Personally, I prefer to save $$$ and weight and clutch the thing myself, even if it costs me a couple of tenths per gearchange. Then again, I actually LIKE it that one of my ABS sensors failed and I no longer have *any* "driver aids" on my S