JCC Classic and beautiful cars

100% in agreement. Plus most modern cars have some form 'manual' option for gear changes (paddles on steering column) even with an auto transmission.

 

I drive mostly in traffic and I love my manual. Wouldn't go auto for anything.

 

Nothing says fun like getting stuck on the George Washington bridge in NYC on a Sunday night. Did I mention it was a three mile backup and I was driving a Standard VW Passat. By the end my clutch leg was sore as hell. I think I lost feeling by the end as well.

 

I rented an Abarth in Italy because YOLO or something. Winding Nth Italian roads are prime manual territory. Milan peak hour? Nooottttttt so much.

 

I rented a Fiat Punto. Somehow I think your driving experience in Italy was better than mine.

 

It's the short stops, inching forward at glacier speed, first to neutral which kills the fun for me.

 

lol did you just mansplain something to me?

But yes, as LOH said, easing it into first for a 10m crawl isn't fun.

Lost - 170km/h down the autostrada. My Italian friends all assured me that if you are <50km/h over the limit, you're not speeding in the police's eyes.

 

I've only ever owned manual transmission cars, up until recently when I bought a Jeep. It was the first automatic I've ever owned, and until I get a Corvette or a Porsche or something, I'm sticking with automatics. It's like a whole new level of freedom and comfort.


I am getting old.

 

STIG!
Okay back to regularly scheduled programming

 

Manual may have it's disadvantages (no system can be perfect), but is has more than enough positives (control being at the top of the list) to make it the clear choice.

 

With the traffic, manual would be a nightmare here for me. Driving in this area-- with the aforementioned traffic and road maintenance that would embarrass Antarctica-- is awful enough.

 

If you haven't been to Slovakia, you have no right to complain about road maintenance. Seriously. We have like the worst roads EVER.

 

Well, the Los Angeles metro area was recently rated as having the worst-maintained roads in the country. I have never been to Slovakia, so I don't know if it's worse than the worst the U.S. has to offer.

 

It's not good, I can tell you that.

 

Did you have to spend $17,000 dollars via credit cards to fix your clutch leg?

 

I believe you mean $14,000.

 

I watched that video and had to lol. You consider that bad roads? This was how our roads looked at the end of last winter: click, click, click, click. Thankfully, the atrocious state of the roads pissed off enough people so most of them have been repaired (at least in the major cities), but it's still pretty bad.

 

Yes but that money's probably worth more now since it's been a number of years.

 

I believe Porsche are phasing out manual transmissions in favour of DCT autos. Everton, "control" is a nebulous thing. Driving an auto through winding back country roads with no other car around dull, I agree, but most modern cars offer paddle gears which will give you the same control. And DCT automatic gearboxes can shift as fast, if not faster, than you can so there's not really any speed advantage. In simple terms, manuals are becoming slowly obsolete. Which is a pity, I suppose, but also inevitable.

Now, for our next car...

 

This choice is driven largely by the starring role this particular car played in one of the best action films ever. It's this car that made me fall in love with Audis, even though I'd first seen them with the Quattros in The Living Daylights.

The 1998 Audi S8 D2




Audi had already moved away from the boxy design that they and BMW favoured with the Audi 80, but this shape here is really what's given Audi a renaissance in terms of look, appeal, and global sales figures. In the film, the car is driven by the American wheelman Larry and it's engine, especially when peeling away from the docks after the below shot's scene, is musical.

It's rare for me that a film makes me go "oh, goddam that's a nice car". But Ronin did.

 

Audi TT?

 

Besides the TT you also have the Mazda RX5. You have all the ones, the threes, and the five series bmws with a standard convertible along with the Z4 and possibly an Alpina Z8. Merc doesn't like using standards except overseas on more simple models. Ironically the big three make convertibles but only the muscle cars with V8 come with a standard and even then only GM and Ford have convertibles.
The DST or the DSG as VW calls it is actually an automatic with inputs from the paddles. The paddles are electrical switches Lin bussed to the tcm using nothing more then digital signals to send the commands to the Transmission ECU. The Bugatti Veyron has a unique setup that basically uses two transmissions together to give you seamless shifts. Oh and standards are coming to a plateau. They think seven gears is the max gears. We are also looking at Ten speed auto transmissions in the next few years. Nine speeds are coming up as zf has designed a new 9 speed transmission and its being used as we speak.