[Ritter]

LOL! I was reading until the above statement.

If it was a C2, very plausible.

 

[Ritter]

There are zero reasons to get this car in an auto, and a million to get it in a manual.

The OP gave reasons that number > zero.

Auto sports cars shouldn’t even exist, it’s a literal oxymoron.

Put down your bible. Ain’t nobody got time for MT monks who drink their own bath water because it’s a more pure bathing experience.

 

[Ritter]

The sport automatic works very well in this car. I’d venture to say it’s a better automatic among automatics than the manual is among manuals.

As @DylanJZA said, it’s programmed for fuel economy in Normal Drive mode. In Sport mode it gets very aggressive and yields hard downshifts on braking and will hold a gear on acceleration. In manual mode, it’s responsive but will deny downshift to protect the engine from exceeding redline. I don’t have a problem with that because the engine has a broad torque curve and downshifting isn’t necessary under such conditions.

The one zonk I’ll give it is that manual mode is wired opposite of what it should be. I swapped the switch wiring so it upshifts with a pull and downshifts with a push.

 

[Ritter]

False. I literally know a guy without legs that drifts a manual vehicle. Not just drives, but participates in motorsports at a high level.

Good for the guy you know. Golf clap.

 

[Ritter]

How is that?

Poor aerodynamics at high speed.

 

[Ritter]

Hmmm...

Check the transmission and differential gearing.

 

[Ritter]

If I wanted something easier to live with though, I would have bought the EV Mini I was considering. Imo a “shiftless”experience most plays to the strength of EVs as a powertrain. If I’m buying an ICE vehicle at this point, I’m doing so consciously buying a mechanical thing. So a manual accentuates that.

I’m not sure what argumentative fallacy this is, but an analogous version would be:

“I don’t like strawberry ice cream, but I do like chocolate.”

“Oh, my. Well, you might as well just go eat dog poop because strawberry ice cream is the only kind worth eating. Personally, I’d Hoover a plate of dog poop before I would ingest one spoonful of chocolate ice cream.”

It’s a flawed argument.

 

[Ritter]

I always wonder why MT owners get so exercised about someone choosing the AT, yet the reverse isn’t the case. AT owners just live and let live and don’t feel the need to proselytize the AT and denigrate the MT. However, the gauntlet has been thrown down, so I will in this post denigrate the MT.

Choosing the AT does not mean one is seeking “a shiftless experience” that isolates or removes them from the task of managing the engine under sport driving conditions. Far from it. Driving a sport automatic, one retains the ability to manage engine rpm and output. It’s just done with a flick of the wrist on the shifter or a tap of the fingers on a paddle, instead of with foot and hand working balky mechanical linkages. There are numerous threads & posts on this forum about poor clutch engagement / pedal feel, annoying clunk going into first, noise in neutral, noise from throwout bearing, crunchy shifts into second, etc. The manual has short ratios and short rear gearing so MT aficionados don’t get an identity crisis if it’s not quicker to 60 mph than the AT. Even with the gearing crutch, it stills requires clutch-roasting launches to beat the AT. And it comes at the cost of annoyingly high rpm on the highway and worse fuel economy.

Driving a sport automatic, when the fun’s all over, switch back to Drive, grab your Big Gulp, and head home on the interstate with lower cruising rpm, better fuel economy, and adaptive cruise with selectable acceleration profiles.

If someone wants to say the GR86/BRZ with 6AT isn’t a sports car? OK, students, fill in the ovals completely with a #2 lead pencil until time is called, then set down your pencil and turn your paper over on the desk.

For my purposes, an automatic absolutely does make it worse at what the car is best at.

I don’t see it in such a binary fashion. “Either I’m marrying peak Cindy Crawford or I’m celibate for life.”

This car is not best at being a manual. The manual is pretty “meh” as manuals go. It’s not best at having a high-strung engine that needs a manual to get the best out of it.

It’s best at being a cheap 2800 lb. car with great chassis dynamics. It’s best at having a tractor-like engine with a fat torque curve that isn’t picky about gear selection. It’s actually an engine ideally suited to a sport automatic.

Automatic ICE vehicles…are so experentially similar to EVs that I don’t see enough of a difference to justify the ICE vs EV.

I’m surprised you can’t perceive a significant experiential difference between these power trains in sports car applications under sport driving conditions. With sport automatic ICE there’s substantial auditory experience coupled with (if you so choose) engine rpm management experience. Both are missing with EV.

 

[Ritter]

Automatic transmissions cause me to have erectile dysfunction. My doctor said that I had to drive manual transmissions or else suffer the consequences of a short, unhappy life...

Well, you know the old saying: "Buy the one that gives you the biggest boner."

 

[Ritter]

The skill is just different, it doesn't require special knowledge, nor does your abilty to drive a MT make you a better driver.

Some of these MT guys think it makes their pecker switch from being an innie to an outie while they’re driving it.

 

[Ritter]

What extra engagement are you talking about, 90% of the time that I drove MT cars and didn’t even notice that I was operating a transmission, it was just something that without any extra brain power to do it.

This is a great point. If you are a well-practiced operator of any kind of equipment, the interface disappears behind a veil of muscle memory, like riding a bicycle. If you still need to consciously “engage” and be aware of how you are interacting with the interface, you aren’t proficient.

 

[Ritter]

It's like shooting fish in a barrel!!

Giving yourself too much credit. Easy for you would be picking up a floating rubber ducky to see if you won a prize or not.

 

[Ritter]

Some of these AT guys wish they had a pecker to begin with ...

AT guys can stand at a urinal and tell you whether or not the water's cold.

 

[Ritter]

...in this everlasting battle of MT vs AT...What seem to be missing here is that there is more to the joy of driving than just shifting gears. The thrill of being able to gauge the perfect speed and line to hold a fast curve or thread the needle in high speed passing is more important to me. The added bonus of AT is being able to keep both hands gripping the wheel as you take a left turn at 90 km/h and I can tell you from experience that you will squeal before this car does.

Eloquently stated.

 

[Ritter]

Hypothetical: same transmission gear ratios and same rear differential ratio. Assuming competent drivers, which car reaches 60 mph first, MT or AT? Which has the lower 1/4 mile ET?

 

[Ritter]

Depends on how fast can the torque converter in the AT shifts.

You mean switch from fluid coupling to lock up?

 

[Ritter]

A refreshing outlook to be sure. I kind of have that with the manual ND MX-5 and the AT GR86 IMO. The MX5 AT is super meh in comparison...

Yeah, I have the MX-5 ND Aisin AT in my 124 Spider and it's not great. My car's a Lusso, so it doesn't have Sport mode like the 124 Abarth with AT. I would like to drive an Abarth sometime and see how much difference that makes.

 

[Ritter]

I'm not sure if that possible due to the mechanics involved

But I do know that it is easier to make a mistake driving and MT instead of an automatic

Yea, automatic will likely be more consistent.

 

[Ritter]

I have said this many times but I would kill for an Abarth (if I could fit in one with the top down RIP)

The main reason I didn't get one is the styling. The front end, the wheels, the interior...it's all too much for me. I do think the rear fascia comes off better than the slightly plain rear of the Classica or Lusso. If my car ever got tagged in the rear, I'd swap the rear bumper over to the Abarth version. My perfect car would have Lusso looks with Abarth mechanicals.

Abarth rear view:

Classica / Lusso:

 

[Ritter]

I wonder if the population sizes are really comparable. If you take the whole population and remove 2% of it as the manual-driving population, at 98% automatic you still have essentially the whole population in that group.