Cars you'd buy if you could get them with a MT

[wdc330i]

There are a 4-door few cars still out there that offer a manual:

Crosstrek, Impreza, and WTI
Mazda3
Mini is bringing them back
VW GTI
VW Jetta
Some Audis
A few BMWs
Some Toyota trucks/econoboxes
Probably some others I'm not remembering...

[JST]

Originally Posted by wdc330i

There are a 4-door few cars still out there that offer a manual:

Crosstrek, Impreza, and WTI
Mazda3
Mini is bringing them back
VW GTI
VW Jetta
Some Audis
A few BMWs
Some Toyota trucks/econoboxes
Probably some others I'm not remembering...

No Audis. No BMWs (as of right now--M3 will change that, in theory).

Sorry, when I said "4 door" I was thinking sedans. As far as I can tell it's just the WRX, Civic Si and Jetta GLI. You're right that there are a few additional hatchbacks with sticks.

[ff]

Originally Posted by wdc330i

There are a 4-door few cars still out there that offer a manual:

Crosstrek, Impreza, and WTI
Mazda3
Mini is bringing them back
VW GTI
VW Jetta
Some Audis
A few BMWs
Some Toyota trucks/econoboxes
Probably some others I'm not remembering...

+ Civic Sport, Si, Type-R (all 4-doors)

[clyde]

Originally Posted by Nick M3

DBW throttles *can* be quite good. They just usually are programmed horribly from the factory. The E46 and E90 M3s are good examples of this.

Modern cars suck to drive with a manual because, for the most part, they are not designed to be enjoyable with a manual because no one buys them. It's a vicious circle. That doesn't mean that you can't choose to make a modern car that's delightful to drive with a manual. It just means that almost no one bothers.

So, you're right that I wouldn't particularly care about a manual offering in nearly any modern car. There's a reason why I don't own any. But the answer to the statement "all modern cars are absolutely miserable to drive" shouldn't be "give up on the hope that you'll ever get to enjoy driving a new car ever again."

I absolutely agree with all of that. Everything electronic/digital between pavement and skin can be as good (maybe even better?) than old fashioned analog...but they haven't been yet. Many of them seem to be going in the wrong direction, too. Of course, they don't have to, but I think the people that buy new cars overwhelmingly don't want them to be better in the sense of what we think of as "better," so they won't be. And when the rare pieces that are better that pop up...they're so comically expensive to the point they only serve as reminders that it didn't have to be this way.

Originally Posted by JST

idk. We may just have different opinions on this. I've only ever driven one car that was worse -- meaning less fun to drive, to me -- in its manual incarnation, and that's the Mercedes SLK. In every other circumstance, even in boring cars, even in pedestrian cars, the manual makes the experience more interesting, and I prefer it.

Add to that my belief that if manuals die in "pedestrian" cars they'll die everywhere, and my lamenting the loss of the Accord Sport 6M is totally logical. Plus, even if the Accord Sport has a weak suspension, fixing the suspension is a lot easier than retrofitting a whole new body, and if I want a four door manual, what other choices do I have at this point?

Anyway. It's fine if you don't want to drive a manual boring car. It's fine if you are ok with a (shudder) automatic Camaro. That's cool. I'm not. I don't like those things anymore than I want a big plate of crabs for dinner (ugh). And it has nothing to do with Trump, or MAGA, or whatever.

I'll go out on a limb and say that there was absolutely zero chance you would have bought a new Accord Sport 6M. If you wouldn't buy it, why should they build it? To the extent you would have considered it, it only would have been until you could decide which of the many reasons that would keep you from buying the car would be the one to lead with when explaining your decision to anyone else. Maybe I'm wrong?

The modern manuals I've had experience with in recent years have had such major downside in everyday use that I'd be lying if I said they were net positives (if a better than average modern slushie was also available) to the driving experience. And those cars have had performance characteristics that preclude playful use on public roads in all but the rarest of conditions. At best, it's been neutral, but mostly they've been net negative.

For the Camaro specifically...I don't know how much the manual experience of the turbo matches the V8. I don't know if the DBW behavior is similar. I do know that the V8 has enough power that full throttle first and second gear will not be good choices on the street and that third gear will do just about everything well enough that the other five forward gears may as well be decorative. OTOH, I know that an automatic in the Camaro provides a pretty dramatically entertaining, yet controlled, experience at 65 mph when it instantly kicks down a few gears at full throttle to shoot a gap while a manual tranmissioned car need to be downshifted and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait for the gap to open providing a less dramatic and entertaining, yet much more nauseating (due to much a more sketchier and sensitivity to throttle movement while waiting for the gap to open) experience in that very common everyday scenario.

Modern day manuals don't give me anaphylactic reactions like plates of crabs do, but that doesn't make them good. I categorically refuse to accept the premise that a modern car is a better car or provides a better experience just because it has a manual transmission installed because it's no more true than an alternative fact. It sure seemed to up until maybe 15-20 years ago, but it's now clear that was much more an example of correlation than causation. Denying that is a choice to believe what one wants to believe independent of what the facts present.

That's my view.

[lemming]

@clyde: I like your comment about the need to go back to pre-2000 cars.

The best driving experience I’ve ever had was when my 1999 M3 got t-boned and in the interim, I bought a 1991 MX5 Miata. To this day, nothing else matches that car for a great analog driving experience (if you were ever in a rush, that was a problem, but...)

[Josh (PA)]

Originally Posted by JST

idk. We may just have different opinions on this. I've only ever driven one car that was worse -- meaning less fun to drive, to me -- in its manual incarnation, and that's the Mercedes SLK. In every other circumstance, even in boring cars, even in pedestrian cars, the manual makes the experience more interesting, and I prefer it.

Just wanted to remind you of your Mini Countryman ownership experience...

[JST]

I probably wouldn’t have bought an Accord; I thought about test driving one but then lost my mind and bought the M3.

It’s also true, though, that I’ve made buying decisions with “stick” as a sine qua non. I wouldn’t have bought an E61 auto; I wouldn’t have bought a Countryman auto. I wouldn’t buy an A4 auto. Not sure if/when I’ll be in the market for a mainstream sedan, but if I were...well I guess I could learn to love the GLI?

I don’t expect Honda to keep building Accords, if I and others aren’t buying them. But I lament their loss.

Your point about multi gear lockdown is right, I guess, but does that make up for the times when you feel an elemental connection with the car during a well executed up or down shift? It doesn’t really for me, partly because the chances to shoot gaps like that in my daily driving are basically non existent. And while I hear you on the quality of today’s manuals, it’s certainly not universally true. The M3 is good, and even the 5.0 Mustang has its charms (though smoothness isn’t really one of them).

[JST]

Ha, yes, Josh—but as much as I disliked rhe Countryman, I disliked the automatic countryman even more!

[clyde]

Originally Posted by JST

I probably wouldn’t have bought an Accord; I thought about test driving one but then lost my mind and bought the M3.

It’s also true, though, that I’ve made buying decisions with “stick” as a sine qua non. I wouldn’t have bought an E61 auto; I wouldn’t have bought a Countryman auto. I wouldn’t buy an A4 auto.

And I wouldn't have bought the E46 wagon without a stick. But, we're not talking about older cars. And we probably wouldn't agree on the cutoff for old, but you realize that your wagon was built only about six years after mine and you'd need to double and add some time to that to measure the distance between when your wagon was built and today, right?

As you point out re: Countryman, when the automatics are lousy, they're lousy. And, as you also pointed out at the time, when the manual transmission is lousy, it can be lousy enough to admit a mistake and move on.

Not sure if/when I’ll be in the market for a mainstream sedan, but if I were...well I guess I could learn to love the GLI?

I don’t expect Honda to keep building Accords, if I and others aren’t buying them. But I lament their loss.

Your point about multi gear lockdown is right, I guess, but does that make up for the times when you feel an elemental connection with the car during a well executed up or down shift? It doesn’t really for me, partly because the chances to shoot gaps like that in my daily driving are basically non existent. And while I hear you on the quality of today’s manuals, it’s certainly not universally true. The M3 is good, and even the 5.0 Mustang has its charms (though smoothness isn’t really one of them).

The Camaro had a no-lift shift trick that was neat, but rarely appropriate since it needed to be floored and above a certain RPM. I look forward to playing with it in a V8 Camaro, but it will be even less responsibly accessible due to power differences. As I said, it's neat, but essentially a useless easter egg in the real world.

That said, the V8 Camaro also has automatic rev matching downshifts. It has to be enabled (I think with each start up) and has two huge fucking paddles on the steering wheel to do it. At face value, I'd rather it not have them, but if the DBW throttle is as wonky as the turbo's and makes downshifting more reliable and consistent, I'll use it because I just don't get any pleasure downshifting for a red light, speed camera, or slower traffic ahead...and there are about 37,000 of those events in-between opportunities for enjoyable downshifts. For upshifts, fighting the car to execute bizzaroly timed shift mechanics is not my idea of fun or making an elemental connection.

I'll take your word that the M3's is good, but everything in real world driving is so far from the car's edges that it doesn't matter. The car is too good for itself to be fun.

[Nick M3]

This is also why I like the E90 with the taps opened a little bit. The torque curve means that you have to drive it, NA w/ ITBs means that the throttle is super responsive (when programmed correctly), there's no irritating turbo lag like the N55 and B58, and because it's relatively low torque, you get to rev it out.

Stock, the S65 is a little unsatisfying because the exhaust and tune cork it up so much, but fix the exhaust and tune it and yum.

And it's just comfortable enough to meet the minimum threshold for work.