The Manual Transmission Is Dying. Good Riddance.
Call me a heretic, but I won’t be shedding a tear for the death of the stick shifts.
If there ever were to be an automotive ten commandments, 'loving thy manual transmission’ will almost certainly be one of the holy orders that descend from the heavens. It therefore also goes without saying that there are many out there that currently will undoubtably call into question your petrolhead credentials, if you so much as hint at the blasphemous offence of preferring any transmission other than the deified stick-shift.
If that is to be the case though, forgive me oh holy V8 in the sky for I have committed that very sin of not really coveting thy manual. And perhaps more egregiously too, I will now hereby proclaim publicly that I personally would prefer pulling a paddle (or simply letting a computer do the work for me altogether) when powering down a proper piece of tarmac, instead of opting for the normal enthusiast's path of rowing thy own gears.
Yes, cue the gasps as I would rather take an automatic transmission than row my own gears. And with the knowledge that I am all but certain to face the full wrath of petrolhead scorn, I would also now like to add that with the manual gearbox disappearing from the modern auto world, I won’t exactly be one of those who will shed more than a few tears while mourning its passing.
Now of course before I inevitably do get stoned or lynched by the mob of angry auto enthusiasts that I have riled up from making these statements however, I humbly beg for those marching up my front door to just put those pitchforks down for a few more moments and hear what I have to say on this matter before throwing a brick through my window. Let me say also that I am willing to get back to the path of manual righteousness, and will more than welcome for anyone to lead me back to the light.
And since we're on a roll in admitting to things too, I do have to say that my manual transmission experience is somewhat limited to perhaps not even 5% of my entire (and entirely rather short) driving life. So I do admit that perhaps the lack of experience will have skewed my perspective towards this topic, especially in contrast to those who have driven stick for decades, and could probably do so in their sleep.
Seeing as I'm a petrolhead from this side of the millennium as well, it is certainly true that I'm blessed with experiencing some of the best automatic and dual-clutch transmissions around. Those old slush-boxes that rev-hang to thy kingdom come are undoubtably a far cry from the seven-speed DSG in my daily driver after all.
Therefore with sufficient asterisks being added to most of the points I am about to make, let's dive right into then the reasons as to why I am not the biggest fan of a stick-shift. And perhaps the most (for the lack of a better term) petty of which being that I just don't find picking the gear I want to be in being contribute a whole lot to the fun I already have while driving, which does kind of defeat the one big plus point everyone makes for choosing a row-your-own manual over an automatic.
This admittedly rather personal opinion I harbour was recently further reinforced when driving through the English countryside in a rented stick-shift Aygo, for which I have to say that there was really not a time that I thought being able to select my own gear was adding to the overall driving experience in any way. In fact, I am prepared to stick my neck out (once again) and say that the chore of having to choose my own gears might have even detracted from the drive a little bit, as the attention paid into picking the right ratio was diverted away from properly caning that little Japanese hatchback on the best British b-roads the west of England has to offer.
Sure, to this point I made there will be those who are more experienced with the ways of the stick saying that the freedom of selecting one’s own ratio comes with that extra dopamine hit of knowing you’ve done a good job, as if looking at the opposite side of things, the punishment for cocking up a gear change usually means a lugging engine with no power whatsoever. Call it laziness or just simply not being a masochist though, but I for one don't typically want to suffer while enjoying my hobbies if I could avoid it.
Besides, a transmission that can shift itself typically has more ratios than that of its row-your-own counterpart. And this in turn tends to therefore mean a car that is both quicker off the line, in addition to being a more comfortable highway cruiser, with the engine not having to scream its head off in ninth as opposed to fifth. What more is that the presence of a greater number of gears also enable for each ratio to be shorter too, and doesn’t that equate to a car that is more regularly in its sweet spot when the going gets brisk?
Just setting things straight once more, I am of course not disagreeing that the thrill of getting a gear change just right on your own is fantastic. I am however arguing that I myself simply don't feel as if I'm not achieving something equally as great if I were to kiss an apex just right as I press on the paddles to shift, or even letting the computer do the shifting for me. And this leads neatly onto the topic of clutch control, which is likely also to be my biggest point of apathy with the manual transmission.
Now I fully understand that being in control of a clutch adds that extra layer to the man-machine interaction between driver and car. Having a clutch to play with does also open the doors to doing more cool things with cars, as learning how to perfect the art of heel-and-toe and left foot braking— or more childishly clutch kicking a car into a drift — is rather difficult without a third pedal around after all.
While on the topic of automotive childishness too, burnouts are undoubtably rather more difficult with a slush box automatic or dual-clutch transmission, particularly for anyone with an ounce of mechanical sympathy for their self-shifting gearboxes. Though let me just pose the question in regards to the regularity of anyone actually performing these childish (albeit fun) acts of automotive hooliganism in their daily driving lives, in place of say having to constantly work the clutch while sitting in heavy traffic or on slightly hilly terrain.
To reiterate yet again (just to pre-empt any more angry emails flooding into my inbox), I’ll like to make it crystal that I am really not against the manual transmission. I concede that I'll probably take a good manual transmission over a jerky automated manual (alá Ferrari’s F1 flappy-paddle system) or ol’ fashioned slush-box any day of the week. In fact, I'll probably own a stick shift car in the near future. Simply because for anyone looking at owning a cheap set of wheels in the UK at least, a stick shift is likely going to be the default transmission in those bargain basement motors.
Seeing also as most older cars I lust after all come with manual gearboxes, there is hence a foreseeable future in which I do have a stick shift in my dream garage. Though if I were to be given a choice, my transmission preferences is currently tending towards the automated variety. For the simple reason as stated previously that I don’t believe picking your ratios and controlling the clutch adds all that much to the engagement, with the idea of having to choosing my gears and controlling the clutch perhaps even being a detractor to my driving enjoyment for the vast majority of the time.
In general then, I do think that the manual transmission does have a time and a place in the auto world. Sadly however, that time looks to have long past it and that place is likely to only be in the history books. And while touching upon the topic of time, the era electrification where peak torque from a motor is delivered right from the word go should really show that this antiquated automotive technology should gracefully exit stage left, much like the way of the choke and the wooden wheel. So if there are any automakers out there who are listening, instead of attempting the futile attempt in pairing a stick shift with an EV, why not find some other way to excite us auto enthusiasts instead?