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Automotive News & Views The Future Of The Manual Transmission
5809 messages, Last post on Dec 03, 2009 at 12:30 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: bristol2 (Sep 10, 2008 7:17 am) |
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Replying to: ateixeira (Sep 10, 2008 12:52 pm) But then WRC cars are all automatics according to this forum. 
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Replying to: boaz47 (Sep 10, 2008 2:51 pm) Then again, they might. Straight cut gears whine like crazy. 
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Replying to: ateixeira (Sep 11, 2008 9:44 am) In all the years I have been a enthusiast I have longed for a sequencial shifter for a car that was as good as what my motorcycles have had. I always thought that we, automotive enthusiasts, got the short end of the stick, no pun intended, when it came to transmissions. The modern manual is a oxymoron. It is a manual but not very modern. As performance drivers in the 60s and 70s we paid good money to buy shifters from companies like Hurst and other that made the gate so narrow you almost felt like you were pushing straight up and pulling straight back. I always thought the transmission people would give us such shifters rather than sending us all off to the aftermarket people. But the manual transmission fell out of favor with the us buyer too fast and nothing much has changed. If you revived someone that had died in the 50s and put them in a manual from the 2000s they wouldn't notice much difference other than 5 of 6 speeds being standard. It isn't that the transmissions themselves aren't better than they were in the 50s it is the clutch. The connection between the driver and the engine hasn't changed much in all those years. A few years ago I started seeing SMTs is race cars and my eyes got wide and my heart skipped a beat because I thought we would be getting such technological marvels in our own street cars. After all we could pretty much the same transmissions as the racers used in our street bikes so the technology should trickle down to the consumer I thought. But it hasn't happened. If you remember it was people like you that directed me to watch the WRC cars to see what racing was like in the rest of the world. I still think of it a bit like an American watching soccer but I will admit there are times I can see the skill theses drivers have and the advantages dropping the third pedel in such applications have. To be honest I am not sure I will ever see such transmissions in our domestic cars even if the new DCTs seem to offer that kind of promise. It seems as if our future will see hybrids in ever growing numbers and the need for any kind of manual slowly fading away. Sports cars will more than likely be the last bastion for the manual in the US but the economy and the environment could even effect that prediction.
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Replying to: boaz47 (Sep 11, 2008 1:31 pm) Its cool to like sequential transmissions if they meet your needs and do what you wan them to do. I don't think anyone should judge what makes others happy, I hope you see your dream realized and you get some type of DCT/SMT trans to play with and complete your driving experience. I would also bet the aftermarket will figure out how to create new software (a shift kit, if you will) to change the characteristics of the shifts to make them WRC car harsh. I would still rather control the powertrain the old fashion way, pushing the pedal to decouple the transmission and engine, select the next gear, and then re-unite them myself.
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Replying to: lilengineerboy (Sep 11, 2008 5:14 pm) I used to like Carburetors rather than fuel injection because I could re-jet them myself to mach the performance of the car I was building. Unless I want to build a NASCAR that isn't going to happen anymore either. Not because it wasn't a good system but because they simply aren't offering them to the American consumer. My conjectures aren't based on what I want to see happen but on what has been happening in the US and Asia. The manual transmission is no longer called a Standard transmission in American cars. Base transmission maybe, and maybe sports transmission but the DSG could even take that description away. Remember this isn't a forum on what transmission we like the best but rather what the future holds for the manual transmission. Judging on where the auto industry is heading I still say it is not a bright future. Even fans of the manual transmission like Nippon suggest that some manufacturers will more than likely drop the manual from their line up. While that doesn't effect everyone it should point out where the industry is heading. Just don't assume for a minute I don't understand how you feel about manuals. It just may not matter. Just imagine if the US goes to hybrids in mass. May not happen but where will that leave the manual? Think about a US market full of EVs what then? |
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advances in powerboat racing have rendered the sailboat obsolete -- or not. There'll always be some of us out here, and I'm betting there will continue to be at least a handful manufacturers who will continue to sell manuals in North America, since they're making them anyway for Europe. But, gosh, I'll be shut out of the mass-produced stuff made for people who are too lazy (or stupid) to use directional signals, let alone a clutch. I'm really going to be disappointed not to be included in their cohort. Maybe the cars with manuals won't have self-parking, 11 onboard cameras, radar-controlled cruise and all the other stuff that renders a vehicle "cutting edge." I'll gut it out. |
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What the heck gear am I in anyway? AC Schnitzer shift knob 
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Replying to: steve_ (Sep 12, 2008 8:00 am) I vote yea. |
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... prefer to look at the tach and speedo to know which gear I am in rather than glance down and guess it from the position of the gear lever. Plus, the power difference would tell me even without glancing at the tach.
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