[DeTomaso] NPC: automotive journalism and manual transmissions

[Sean Korb]

I was sad to lose Dan in our local paper but happy he found an awesome
gig :)  I think older cars with manual gearboxes will appreciate
sharply in value as it becomes impossible to find them in a new car
and nostalgia and means to own a collector car falls to Gen X.  Gen Y
didn't have much experience with them but there may be some bleedover.
 Eventually they will be as odd as having a spark advance lever on the
steering wheel and a manual choke (remember those?).

sean

On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Charles Engles <cengles at cox.net> wrote:
>    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
>
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-- 
Sean Korb spkorb at spkorb.org http://www.spkorb.org
'65,'68 Mustangs,'68 Cougar,'78 R100/7,'60 Metro,'59 A35,'71 Pantera #1382
"The more you drive, the less intelligent you get" --Miller
"Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers." -P. Picasso