Why a Stick Shift Defines the Driver

Let's be fair, as much as I love to drive a manual, no one can outdrive a good dual clutch paddle shift. Some cars have such high capabilities that it just makes more sense, IMO.

That said, a manual is still a requirement for me.



Mark

 

there are reportedly 5-7 of them ww.

i helped a friend of mine buy one, and i have the option to buy it if he sells.

however, i can tell you that he has had it in the shop at least 3 times because the manual somehow packed it up and didnt work. so there is something about the ecu's that just dont marry up well with the manual shifter.

 

I don't think anyone is arguing no one can outdrive a dual clutch paddle shift in otherwise identical cars with drivers with identical driving skills. But those situations only occur on the racetrack and in series where the drivers are all exceptional and well above regular drivers (including Fcar owners).

F1 shifting is overkill for road cars. Who care how fast it shifts over a regular manual on the way to the restaurant? Yes, some owners do track them but even then tracking a road car doesn't make that much sense since so much of the rest of the car isn't track oriented (leather, a/c, satnav, power everything, sound system, etc).

The argument of manual vs F1 only applies to sanctioned racing events imo and F1 is the way to go. Outside of that, it serves no real purpose other than to do less work when driving or for those to drive the car that don't know stick. Otherwise it just makes ownership more expensive.

 

Best is to own 2 (or more). 1 shift one SuperFast2 or DCT car and a manual. Best of both worlds.

IMO Ferrari nailed it with the Scuderia/GTO gearboxes, and only improved from there. Even I wouldn't really want a 599 GTO with manual. On an F12/812, i'd take DCT every time.

 

Agree with your logic. Yes on track they are faster, but as you point out there are any number of faster cars than a street car on trAack anyway.

Its mostly a way to own an AT car and still feel good about it, because the excuse is paddles are "faster" its then the performance option, has better paper numbers etc.. Paddles are certainly more livable in traffic which is where most moderns live, and are used to drive to resteraunts concors etc. They work for 60+ year olds who can afford these cars but otherwise cant really drive and are having some youthful fantasy about a life they were afraid to live.

On a backroad a sportscar as opposed to overpowered Gt is supposed to be engaging entertainig and viceral, sticks along with great steering and feedback engage and engage the driver at road attainable speeds in a way paddles and eps simply cannot get close to.

Reality today ferrari and others make ultra fast Gt cars, designed not to threaten but rather to coddle and flatter. The result is they feel mostly like "just cars" to drive at road speeds and untill 9/10ths or more dont really engage the driver any differently to any other mass produced car. Yes at 9/10ths or more they thrill, but this requires a track where these cars dont exactly excell anyway. Probably the biggest culprit of this false road is the new Mcalren 720.

Paddles are not necesarily fatal, the new performante by all accounts is a great drive on road and track, but would probably still be infintiely more engaing on road with a stick. There is a reason why porche had to bring back the stick on the techno 991 Gt3. Sales of this option are by all acounts excelent

Technology can and does improve ease of ownership, mtor performance and reliabilty, in this sense its a boon. Missaplied tech means paper numbers are improved but everything about what makes a sportscar so special an experience is otherwise diluted. What youre left with is the sheer thrill of excess hp and mostly unuseable speed.

Funny how ferrari engineers motor sound and exhaust flaps to maintain the soprano voice which they say is a key part of the brand experience, but has lost so much else. But then theyre not really targeting the sporting driver of means, they're targeting the status concious rich which is a bigger group, so the product reflect this.

Porche is gettign smart, off one 991 platform they can target the 90% who really wnat the proche equivalnet of a lexus coupe, and the 10% who really care with the GT3 and Gt4. Ferrari imo is too arrognt about the power of its brand and too lazy and cheap to engineer a car for the 10%. And no superlimited suderias and speciales are nto cars for the 10% they are collector garage queens, their purposefully limited production assures this. Meanwhile serious drivers of some means apply elsewhere. Maybe participating in F1 and making cars with ersatz F1 features can sustains the brands road car cred to its target market.

 

I used to think the same. The 458 is a high rev lowish Tq motor best suited to closely staced quick changing gears. However the 991 GT3 motor has a 9k redline and simlar charateristics and by all accounts the properly enginered 6 speed stick works there brilliantly.

A stick nbeeds to be properly enginered for its application. The one in the 599 clearly was not. If you ever drove a 991 with the 7 speed it also clearly sucked.

Personaly I think a 458 styled car stripped of frippery, with a 12 cyl engine, properly enginered stick, and manual steering may be slower less comfortable or easy to drive than a 488, or whatever will replace the speciale. However imo it is a far more appealing car (for the non flipper driver long term owner,) than the 488 or regular 458 which will be just used cars one day. Such a machine is also very fitting within the ferrari historical ethos.

As ducati does a classic series so should ferrari. Besides the stick they already have all the pieces.

I found the 458 visualy stunning, a return to form for ferrari their nicest piece since who knows when, and at the same time it was very underwhelming and uninterestinbg to drive at any speed other than banzai full tilt. It not a car that would be entertaining at a fast trot on a sunday backroad drive and frankly there are better more durable choices on track. The too quiet or overly loud exhaust made it all a bit of a clown car.

 

And I hated people who had lots of 8's, 9's and 0's in their number, it took forever to dial those numbers.

From everything I've read Ferrari discontinued the manual transmissions because nobody was ordering them. Now that they don't make them, everybody wants to order them.

If I was at Ferrari, I'd make manual transmissions again until nobody wanted to order them again.

 

I think the "nobody wanting to order them statement" was only partly true and not the entire story to move to F1.

I think that when F1 came out, it served as a great marketing piece as the latest gadget and it made people want to order it over manual. With each new iterations of the gadget (faster shifts, shift lights, etc), it continued to have people opt for it instead over stick while stick stayed the same in terms of improvement (or lack thereof).

But the other half I think they are leaving out is the increase in revenue and profit they get from F1 over stick. They can streamline production to suit one transmission and it makes assembly faster and cheaper. It makes servicing the cars easier if it's all the same type of system. It gets more profit as the transmission is more expensive so the margin is greater on them. Then of course it costs more to repair so they get more money that way.

And they can sell cars to people that have a hard time driving stick if they can even drive stick at all.

I think those are reasons they switched to F1-only with less demand being only a fraction of that reason.

I'd love to see someone make a custom 458 Speciale as a manual and without power assisted anything...like the McLaren F1.

 

Not everybody, just people who actually want to drive a car, not just sit in the drivers seat steering and braking.

 

Whether automatic or stick, paddle shifters remind me of column mounted PRND automatic stalks or "three on the tree" straight drive controls. Seems to be going back to the "what's old is new again" adage.

 

Eh, transmission type is one very small aspect of a car that rarely influences my decision to either like or dislike a particular vehicle. People have different preferences, fortunately. I think it would be a boring world if everyone liked the same things. IDK.... I'm just not a fan of people who delineate their opinions as unarguable fact.

 

What if Ferrari made a sparse bare bones sports car like the lotus? Simple manual gearbox, no power steering, no ABS etc. I believe it would have a following!

 

I have only had stick Ferraris and Lamborghinis all my life. I recently bought my first paddle shift car....a Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster....and I hate it!
Sure, it's the most efficient and the fastest shifts I've ever seen....so what! It's boring! From a traffic light to past interstate speed limits with one figer pull...yawwwwn. Gee, so glad I didn't chip my nail polish lol

I have these cars for fun and I daily drive them. I'm just not a paddle shift kinda guy. I like the challenge to get every shift right, to balance the clutch just right......and at the proper occasion, blip my throttle a few times at a prettay girlie lol

Nah, you can keep it. I want stick and it's disappointing that nothing new is there anymore. Even when I test drove a 700hp super fast Aventador Roadster it was boring.

Oh well, at least I have my 91 Testarossa....gated shift and no power steering.....hardcore, just the way I like it.


Shamile

Freeze. . . Miami Vice!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

 

Haven't been without a stick since 1980 mostly because the cars I like happen to have them. But I am very happy with dct and would chose it over stick if I could only have 1.

Once you learn how to shift properly with heel toe, its not that big a deal whether on street or track. It just becomes a reflex.

Haven't found a torque converter auto I like despite great reviews like z06, amg, jaguar, etc. They are all too slow on downshifts.

Dct as done by porsche or ferrari is perfect to me

 

A perfectly blipped heel and toe downshift braking hard into a corner gives the exact same feeling as a knee down at the track on a motorcycle and the exact same feeling as getting a sailboat into the perfect groove upwind. YOU did this.

On a mountain road with a picnic basket and a gorgeous woman: lotus 7 (caterham) or 488?

 

Yep, 2nd to 3rd in a Maranello under power without the hood dipping, priceless.

 

On a mountain road with a picnic basket and a gorgeous woman: lotus 7 (caterham) or 488?

Ill take the gorgeous woman every time!!

 

Sports cars ain't been "right" since they got roll-up windows.

If'n you don't wind up covered in sweat and motor oil, and smelling of raw petrol, you just don't have the experience.

 

I have come to learn that the modern cars are so well focused that I can't possibly shift as fast as the paddle shift transmissions which I really enjoy on the modern cars ..
However on the classics there is nothing like shifting and running the engines through the power band ..
So for me the modern cars are better as paddle shift and the classics are just wonderful as a manual.....
best of both worlds

 

why cant manufacturer make paddle dct that also has a clutch pedal and stick shift? can either do full auto, paddles, or switch to stick. video games have it. the stick and clutch pedal is done electronically not mechanically but feels same. seems easy to have cake and eat it too.

 

Does it take more skill to drive a stick fast? Yes. Pretty hard to dispute that.
Do most of our "race" cars ever make it to the track for that to even matter? Nope.
Buy the one you enjoy driving the most.
And then actually drive it.

 

"DCT: Dual Clutch"
You mean two clutch pedals?

 

take a regular dct and add a foot pedal and console stick shift. like high end video game consoles have. can use it as a regular paddle shifter OR switch to using the clutch pedal/stick as in a vintage car. only difference is the pedal/stick are electronic not mechanical. when in stick mode, must step on the pedal and move the h pattern stick. when in paddle mode, just use it as current ferrari/porsche

 

Two completely different transmission designs.

A twin-clutch box distributes the gears between two different shafts, each with their own clutch.
Gears 1,3,5 on one clutch; gears 2,4,6 on another.
They do sequential shifts quickly because shifting from 1st to 2nd is merely engaging one clutch and releasing the other.
There are two gear selection operations, one on each shaft.
To do that manually, you'd need two clutch pedals and two sticks.

A manual box has all the gears on one shaft, disconnected while changing selection.

Form follows function. You can't put both formats on one box.
It's not as easy as adding a manual crank handle to electric windows.

You might be able to perma-clutch one shaft, and turn a 6 speed DCT into a 3 speed manual.
But you'd add a lot of excess weight to try to turn back the clock on a DCT, if you didn't want the computer in the middle.

Or you could just change the "paddle" paradigm to cue the computer through a rube goldberg complexity that resembles a pedal and stick.

 

Wow....thanks for that information. I learned something.

Shamile

Freeze. . . Miami Vice!

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