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Originally Posted by vant
 Fair enough. I can't explain it, and I don't expect anyone else to either. It's honestly a mystery to me why I prefer the MT, but I try not to overthink it. There's a part of my brain that feels really good when I nail that perfect heel and toe downshift. It's a man/machine type of connection, call it "Automo-Chi"?  (That's the last word I make up today, I promise).
Hey, some guys like blondes, others, brunettes. If we were all the same the world wouldn't be interesting, right? But you're absolutely correct that the paddleshifter, dual clutch, whatever, is more advanced and superior to MTs from a numbers point of view. |
Automochi has a good ring to it, be a good title for someones autobiography or something.
Part of why I'd rather have one is lack of talent, part is maybe laziness (fitting time/energy for learning a new trick isn't as easy as it was when my hypothalamus was interested primarily in rum and cleavage, lol), part is magazine-racing, but mostly its just cool technology... a case where machine can be greater than man.
But totally the option should be available in a 'vette to get a manual. especially a 'vette as its been around awhile and no doubt has a bigger following among traditionalists than, say, a GT-R.
But I think GM would do well by itself if it made the vette a rolling technology showcase the way Ferarri's sort of are. I don't mean GT-R the thing out, I just mean keep the pinnacle vette at the top of the sports car heap.
And seriously, the small-block V8 is always going to offer what it takes to do that. Greatest motor ever made. Its in my truck, my work pickup, my 'vette, my old pickup, most of my offroad pals's jeeps, probably in some race car that won some title AND some offroad truck that won some title AND some pickup that won some pulling contest, all in most any day in the summer...
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That reminds me of an example I mentioned in an earlier thread about progress and technology making things better than they were before. Velcro straps on shoes are far "better" than back-ass old school laces. They're faster and easier to strap than laces, never come unstrapped accidentally and trip you, and they even make a really satisfying sound when unvelcro'ed. And yet I'd be willing to bet you're wearing laces right now, despite the clear and overwhelming advantages of velcro. 
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Actually - and i do see your point - I have velcro sandals on. That smell curiously like a swamp.
Why did society abandon velcro? Marketing? We saw it first on cheap shoes, while expensive shoes still had laces, which gave it that cheap and crappy aura rather than new-and-better?
Plastics were high end once, weren't they? Then they got too cheap to be cool? Or was it because plastics just don't age taht well back in those days and the shiny new cool plastic stuff was all messed up ina decade?
The way "soft ice cream" probably didn't serve Dairy Queen (or whoever invented it) marketing as well as "fresh ice cream" may have?
Thats darn interesting.
