[DeTomaso] NPC: automotive journalism and manual transmissions

[Charles McCall]

Very good read - thanks for sharing!

I understand that paddle shifting is faster. A clutch pedal will always be
more entertaining. Sorry to see it dying out - I'll be signing up for my
wooden wheels and cable brakes....

-----Original Message-----
From: DeTomaso [mailto:detomaso-bounces at poca.com] On Behalf Of Charles
Engles
Sent: domingo, 23 de febrero de 2014 20:59
To: detomaso at poca.com
Subject: [DeTomaso] NPC: automotive journalism and manual transmissions

Dear Forum,

 

 

                         This is from Dan Neil's recent Wall St. Journal car
review of the new Mazda 3.   He writes very well.    Interesting and erudite
commentary about manual transmissions.   Excerpts follow:

 

 

 

               "In two weeks, if all goes according to plan, I will drive
the McLaren P1 at Dunsfold.  That is the rubbish test track you see on "Top
Gear."  And some sunkissed day soon, I'll mambo with the LaFerrari hypercar
on a sublime corso in Italia.  Va bene.

 

                But a car like the Mazda3 I Grand Touring is, for people who
like to drive, pound-for-pound, minute-by-minute, more fun than either of
those ladies, stumbling around in their high horsepower stilettos.  Outside
of a race track, the McLaren and Ferrari-actually, most exotic hypercars-are
slapstick figures: nearly impossible to get out of second gear without
drawing the attention of the local constabulary; requiring secure parking
for even a trip to the market; and mobbed by car-loving mouth-breathers
most  of the time.  A dirigible would be more convenient.

 

     Mazda's freshly redesigned five-door hatch drives like it was on
cartoon animation, just happy to be its wheel and eager to heat up the
tailpipe.  It isn't fast, particularly, and it doesn't have unusually high
limits, But it is so will to stretch to reach them and so untroubled by
heard driving, that you want to pin a medal on its chest..

 

                  Here, the Mazda chassis department is exploiting a famous
phenomenological loophole:  It is more fun to go fast in a slow car than to
go slow in a fast car  (also known as the British Leyland Rule).  

 

                  ....the six speed manual transmission comes only with the
smaller, 2.0 liter engine...I suppose that at this point, I must observe
that the sun is setting on manual transmissions.  As it should.  In an era
of quick-twitch mechatronics-of continuously variable transmissions, 8-speed
dual-clutch transaxles, 9-speed automatics with torque converters-using a
series of steel linkages to engage and disengage gears while levering the
clutch in and out of the way with your foot?  It is barbaric.

 

                Sentimentalists argue that semiautomatic and automatic
systems are uninvolving to drive.  You want involving?  We should go back to
wooden wheels and cable brakes.  

 

                     Look, I only read the writing on the wall, I didn't
write it.  Manual transmissions are, for example, slower than modern
automatic and dual-clutch transmissions.  Around a road course, a
PDK-equipped, paddle-shifted Porsche 911 will steadily walk away from the
exact same car with some stick-shifting yokel in the driver's seat.  As
hybrid and electric parts take up a greater percentage of powertrain duties,
gearboxes themselves will become obsolete.  

 

                        Manual transmissions are also less fuel-efficient
than other cog-swappers, and rising fuel economy standards will only
marginalize manual transmissions further.  The percentage of new light
vehicles sold in the U.S. with manual transmissions is in the single digits.
Meanwhile only a small and aging segment of the driving population even
knows how to drive a manual transmission.  Go ahead, leave the keys in it: A
car with a stick shift is practically immune to theft.

 

                    For these reasons and more, manual transmissions are
becoming as rare as unicorns.  Ferrari doesn't make a car with a manual
transmission.  Nor Lamborghini.  Porsche and Corvette offer the mechanical
curiosity of 7-speed manuals, but these are pandering and retrograde,
actually sacrificing performance to nostalgia.  Call it emo-engineering."

 

 

 

                 

 

 

                           Dan Neil's resume:

 


Dan Neil is the author of the "Rumble Seat" column which runs Saturdays in
The Wall Street Journal.


Previously, Mr. Neil was the auto columnist for the Los Angeles Times from
2003 to 2010. He also wrote the syndicated column "800 Words," a column
about pop culture that was syndicated by Tribune media in 2005 and ran until
it was discontinued in 2008.

Mr. Neil began his professional writing career with the Spectator, a local
free weekly, and began working for The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., as
a copy editor in 1989. In 1991 he began the paper's weekly automotive
advertising section.

In 1994 he was recruited by AutoWeek magazine as a senior contributing
editor and in 1995 he began contributing to The New York Times which
continued until 2003. He went to work as a contributing editor at Car and
Driver.

In 2004 he won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism for his column and to date,
is the only car columnist ever to win a Pulitzer. In awarding Mr. Neil, the
Pulitzer board praised his "one-of-a-kind reviews of automobiles, blending
technical expertise with offbeat humor and astute cultural criticism."

In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize, Mr. Neil also won the Ken Purdy
Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism, from the International Motor
Press Association, in 2001. He also was selected for Houghton Mifflin's Best
American Sports Writing, 2002.

Mr. Neil received a B.A. degree in Creative Writing from East Carolina
University and an M.A. in English Literature from North Carolina State
University. He is married and has twin daughters and a son.

 

                              Warmest regards,  Chuck Engles