Posted on 05/02/2012 1:50:24 PM PDT by Sopater
Go to any given dealership with 100 new cars.
On average, just four of the 2012 models will have manual gearboxes.
The trend of the vanishing third pedal is nothing new, notes The Detroit News.
Even a decade ago, just 8.5 percent of 2002 models were manuals. The paper’s own automotive reporter even confesses she never learned to drive a stick shift until it essentially became a job requirement.
It’s more than a little contradictory to automotive reviews (including many you’ll read here) extolling the pleasure of enthusiastic driving with a true manual gearbox. Likewise, purists gravitate to manuals for tackling their favorite twisting road or occasional track day. It’s the original form of in-car connectivity.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
For the first 100K then its dicey with potential a HUGE bill (>$3K) coming your way.
are there any cars that have “paddle shifters” like they have in F1???
250,000 on my Z/28 auto with nary a prob. That would probably be 2 clutches
My cousin had one of those in a Buick Skylark GS 455. Dang thing whined like a wife on a small shoe budget.
It's toughness is legendary, though. However, the Ford Toploader has the most rigid case design, which is why Jericho racing transmissions are taken from that design. A big-block Toploader is probably every bit as tough as a Rockcrusher.
The best part about those transmissions is the fact that you'd have to do something spectacularly stupid to really hurt either of them. Modern aluminum-case manuals abound, but I wince at the thought of power-shifting them like I did those old beasts of the Big 3.
I’ve NEVER got more than 175K out of an AT. You got lucky I think. Being in a car when the Tranny blows is a real experience.
FWIW the old Muncies are aluminum case and the (weaker) Saginaws are cast iron case.
Back in the mid 80s the Army decided nobody could drive manuals anymore, it was a waste of time and money to try and teach recruits, and they went automatics across the board. That was pretty indicative.
My Jeep GC has an auto-manual. I could get used to one. I want to trade it. I’m looking at a Mercedes 230 and a BMW or Volvo but my son(16) is working me for a straight drive car.
I learned on an antique fork lift. but I still remember my first time behind the wheel of a car with a stick. I thought it would be a piece of cake since I knew how to drive the fork lift. But forklifts are never driven on hills. That first hill I had to take off from a dead stop was not pretty.
Yes, kinda.
Back then, overdrive was a 2 speed manual transmission bolted onto the back side of the regular transmission. It was kinda like the transfer case on a 4wd pickup except without the drive shaft to the front wheels.
You could have an overdive transmission AND a 2speed rear end...so if you had a 3 speed transmission, plus over drive plus a two speed rear end, you would have 12 theoretical gear ratios. Of course many of them would be useless. You would only have 7 useful gear ratios, I think. Maybe only 5.
All wheel drive is awesome for straight line zero to sixty times. It sucks for handling, braking, and high speed acceleration...as in, say, 75mph to 150mph. So basically, in the real world it is pretty cool. On a race track, not so much.
Yes
acura had a super duper model integra at one time with paddles. Ferari had a model at one time with paddles. Those are the only two I know of. There are probably a couple others.
I just remembered another feature of the old overdrive transmissions. It has been nearly 50 years since I had that old 55 so my memory is not that clear.
That feature was “freewheeling’. If the transmission was in overdrive and you took your foot off the accelerator, the car would basically act as if it was in neutral. If you needed to use the gears to decelerate you had to take it out of overdrive.
I am not sure why but probably it was necessary for the overdrive to work properly.
That old 55 would fly. I remember it had a top speed of 110 and it would do that in 3 different gears. 2nd and overdrive, high, and high with overdrive.
My best friend’s Father bought a new 63 galaxy 500 with a 352 and a four barrel. We had a drag race and the old 55 beat it pretty easily.
You realize Audi has dominated P1 (top class) in the LeMans series for several years, with quattro (and turbodiesel)?
And soon after quattro was instroduced, it dominated unlimited class, so it got outlawed. 1982 to 1987 Pike’s Peak.
My initial remark was perhaps poorly stated, that modern vehicles are faster than muscle car era smokey, noisy, rubber burning stuff.
IOW to go really fast, not just special effects.
In the real world, if you are seriously interested in performance vehicles, why not get the real thing?
A friend of mine had a Studebaker Hawk with an overdrive knob on the dash that had to be pulled I believe. I have no idea how it worked. My only idea as to how it worked was that it was in the rear end and not the transmission itself. But that’s always just been a guess
I know of old 400 turbos doing it too. Not to knock manual trannys, but I’ve not seen clutches last that long unless it was all highway miles
For the first 100K then its dicey with potential a HUGE bill (>$3K) coming your way.
true on the cost. I’ve used teflon fluid in the tranny and differential since the first change. That may have helped
In the winter my 4x4 m/t Suburban (1990) would beat all sorts of sports cars off the line.
Wife and I just traded in a big Diesel truck (Six Speed Manual) for a brand new Hyundai Sedan (Six Speed Manual).
I do remember that the overdrive was in the rear of the transmission but it was not an addition in that everything was enclosed in the same case.
When I had to replace the transmission, I got another one from a junkyard. I had no idea how they worked but remember Daddy hooking up some wires to the replacement and checking to see if the solenoid worked. Sure enough, every time he would put power to the terminals, the solenoid would click and you could tell it was moving something inside the transmission.
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