Awesome Thread... [Automotive Edition]

Having lived with a particularly bad one, swapping automated manuals for full manuals is always fine in my book. It's old technology that has proven itself to be unreliable in a lot of cases. The M3 CSL would be a perfect candidate and honestly, despite not being a fan of the E46 in general, I also consider it to be peak M3. I remember how excited Clarkson was about it on his DVD and it does make an amazing noise.

The Aston Martin Vanquish is another I can think of that would be prime for a manual swap, as Clarkson said when he reviewed its replacement "In practice it went from 0 to 6000rpm in one clutch." I seem to recall him enjoying the DBS with its factory manual.

I like the idea of a Smart Roadster (I still love that awful car) with a manual but I don't think the footwell has enough space for a third pedal...
 
please hand in your car nut badge :eek:
:LOL: I prefer the E30 and E36. E46 is fine but it just doesn't do anything for me. Almost bought one for the UK roadtrip in 2016 but the one I looked at was falling apart.
 
Aston Martin Vanquish
Yet another perfect example of a car that was later "fixed", and in this case, by the manufacturer itself.
I'll give you this: modern automatics are very good, but the early automated manuals were a poor attempt of a young technology.
 
Yes, those automated manuals were only really good for fast changes in track cars, in most other applications they were ridiculously jerky. That are after all related to the sequential transmissions used in race cars, although they have dog-clutches and straight cut gears. This jerkyness-issue was fixed with the introduction of the dual-clutch-transmission, which is basically two manual transmissions joined together with two wet clutches. The result of this is that you get both the automatic's smoothness, combined with even faster shift speeds than the fastest automated manuals.

Lately, traditional torque converter automatics have also gotten faster than their "slush-box" predecessors used to be.
 
Yet another perfect example of a car that was later "fixed", and in this case, by the manufacturer itself.
I'll give you this: modern automatics are very good, but the early automated manuals were a poor attempt of a young technology.
which means everyone should be comfortable with doing that particular one...especially since the gearbox they used was that ol' reliable, the T56.
 


Semi-local guy. Car has ran at our track, but with big slicks instead of the smaller radials he was running here.

A couple of things to point out, one, he did the right thing trying to pedal it once the front came up, but really should have aborted the run. Two, notice that the one piece front end becomes a sail once sufficient air gets underneath it. Three, many drag cars are built without aerodynamics in mind. To the point they are probably not all that safe to drive at the speeds they are capable of.
 
too bad the went over the center line
The way I understand the rules, it was after the finish line (the class runs 1/8th mile) and wouldn't have been a disqualification. However, one thing I'm not 100% clear on, since he didn't trip the finish line sensor (he was airborne of course) would that be a disqualification? Either way, this was either a test run or qualifying run and not eliminations anyway.
 
 
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Yes.
 
^They didn't show much respect for the dead in that. What a disaster that event was.


 
Listen to the thunder from EuroAsianBob's Cobra with 513cc!

 
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Car manufacturers should pay attention.
 
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