People who choose 2 pedals over 3 sit down to pee!

New slogan?

I don't think we need to get sexist about it. Hell, goodness knows most women have more cajones than Razor does anyway!

Oh my god, it's the high school jet set all over again. Choke me with the popular kids' approval.



...so are Moe, Razor, and I not members of DS now?



And my response is only semi-serious, because I know what's going on here is ribbing instead of flaming. But still, come on, this is ridiculous...

I know it's ridiculous, that's sorta the point. But it's founded in something that's real.

From my experience, both with myself and with everyone around me, people who resist driving stickshift out of some sense of practicality or convenience or just general disinterest never ever regret the decision to drive stick on a daily basis once they give it a chance. No matter how hard they resist it, once they give in to it, they always say "why didn't I do this sooner?" So all I see with Razor is just yet one more case of that happening.

Mitlov: "the judgment of dieselstation" is nothing more than the constant ribbing that takes place in threads like these. And I really only gave the FWD argument that Razor raised the benefit of the doubt because it's somewhat true...you don't have to be on dieselstation too long to realize, though, that the FWD/RWD debate is about a tenth as important/passionate as the manual/auto debate. So don't worry, we're all true members, even people who don't have a license (haha viper007bond, where is that guy anyway?)

Why does razor even care what dieselstation thinks?

pfft because we're right every time, duh.

Oh yes, I forgot.

I know you hate the R32, so evidently this is biased.

EDIT: Nevermind, I just recalled the chat we had on IRC... your only big complaint was the interior trim... fish lure, remember?

Mitlov, how is this so hard for you to understand, where have you been? This isn't a Dieselstation viewpoint, this is a global car enthusiast viewpoint.

If it's such a globally-accepted "car enthusiast" viewpoint, why do you find flappy paddles in everything from the F430 to the R32 to the EVO to the GT-R to the IS-F?

"Car enthusiasts" aren't nearly as monolithic and homogeneous as the little band of folks dog-piling on Razor right now.

This entire thread is one giant "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

Exactly!

No but seriously, we value car control as car enthusiasts right? Both in terms of driver skill and letting the car allow us to do so. Manual transmissions remain the paramount example of that, period, end of story. Now, you want to argue how close a DSG or R-tronic or whatever system can get to that level of control, go ahead. But it'll never reach unity or exceed it.

Even a Lotus Exige will never give you the level of control that a CBR600RR will. I mean, you can separately modulate front and rear brakes! Linked brakes are viewed with disdain among the sportbiker equivalents of DS in the same way that you view automatic transmissions with disdain. Same with ABS. You find it on touring bikes but not hardcore sportbikes. You'll hear trash talk on the internet that skilled riders can control their own brakes, and ABS is for pussies. (I don't know if the Exige has ABS, but you get the point).

And yet, I don't see a Yamaha R6 in your driveway. We all like to talk the "more control is better, compromise is for pussies" talk, but few of us really walk that walk.

Main point: We're a car forum here. We talk cars.

An aside on that topic: I can't speak for anyone else, but I dislike motorcycles because I find the human/motorcycle interface unnatural and unappealing. So, from my point of view, a car still offers superior control to a motorbike due to my preference for how cars interface with their drivers so there's no internal inconsistency there anyway on my part.

That's only because it's what you learned first. It's like reading left-to-right instead of up-to-down or right-to-left. I spent more time from age 16-18 on two wheels than four, and I have to say, I think it makes sense to handle brakes, throttle, and clutch with the hands (which give more precise control than the feet do) and leave shifting (and rear brakes) to the less-sensitive feet.

It may seem counter-intuitive if you're not used to it, but I guarantee you that hands can more precisely modulate clutch, throttle, and front brake than feet can.

For the record: this conversation, from my POV, is waaaay beyond your particular choices at this point. This is about ideology on something I'm personally extremely passionate about (cars).


Oh I'm well aware of that. Being aware of it doesn't put me a in a time machine and make me learn to ride a motorcycle first, though. I'm kinda stuck with where I've come from, in other words.

Wait, explain that please?

Razor: At this point I'm espousing my ideology, and taking time to receive contradictory input to perhaps come to better conclusions about what exactly I find to be important in the world of cars.

On a more basic level, it might seem weird that I have an ideology about cars. Well, I do...to me, cars serve to fulfill an emotional purpose at least as much as they serve to fulfill a practical purpose (honestly for me I'd say moreso). That impacts greatly my opinions on what separates good cars from bad cars.

Mitlov: Fair point I guess, though I certainly see the jump from automatic to manual much more "learnable" than an entire shift in control layout and vehicle dynamics that comes from car to motorcycle (or vice-versa). Given the effort, both changes are attainable, but I guess my opinion is that whereas there is a clear superior choice in automatic/manual, motorcycle/car doesn't represent anything more than a choice based on preference. Also, like I'm trying to tell Razor, this is a discussion about cars and how I feel about them. Of course everything gets way more convoluted when you open it up to motorcycles. Why don't we go ahead and open it up to go-karts, airplanes, skateboards, and skis while we're at it if that's the direction you want to go? Focus, mitlov! Obscuring the point is an effective way to defuse debates but not a very good way to get anything out of them.

Definition 1a of enthusiast: someone who is filled with enthusiasm.

Definition 2a of enthusiasm: strong excitement of feeling.

Which is more exciting to drive? Which generates more excitement of feeling?

Manuals are more fun to drive, ergo they are the enthusiasts choice.

Film at 11.

EDIT: When did this place require disclaimers to each post?

I don't see them as all that different. Both are motor vehicles. Mechanically, they're very similar except in how they handle (banking versus yawing). They travel on the same roads. They race on the same tracks (from Laguna Seca to the Paris-Dakar Rally). They have engines that are similar in concept (or in practice if you're using an R1-powered Caterham).

Pickup trucks aren't the main focus of DS (which is sports cars and sports compacts), but we talk about them here from time to time. Frankly, I think that a Honda S2000, and certainly a Caterham or an Atom or an XBow, has more in common with a modern sportbike than it has with a modern pickup truck. So I don't see why you are so hostile to motorcycles being part of DS discussions from time to time.

I know I'm not alone in thinking that they have more in common than different. Most major car magazines and most major motorcycle magazines have pitted some supercar against some superbike at one point or another, whereas only a show as ludicrous as Top Gear would ever pit a high-performance car against a couple of skiers or an airplane.

A lot of the new paddle shifters also offer faster shifts than any human can conjure. Aren't enthusiasts also concerned with performance? I'm stuck in my ways, and have a manual. But this isn't twenty years ago with a torque converter auto that changes gear two seconds after you want it to. We're talking multi-clutch, hundredths if not thousandths of a second shifts. Transmissions that'll blip the throttle on downshifts for you. An auto that was designed to make your life easier...not the enthusiast's choice. Autos that are furthering the interests of a gearhead...I'm all for it. The Scuderia lacks a third clutch pedal, but is one of the most driver-focused cars available today...

But the real question is if Jeremy Clarkson, who is true car enthusiast my all means, was handed two keys and he could only choose one, a flappy paddle Scuderia or a 3 pedal Scuderia(hypothecially) which key would he take?


I think we all know which key he would walk away with...

^ Touche. My point is, I think the time for manual being the only choice for an enthusiast has passed. We must accept autos, just as we must accept Clarkma.

My momma always told me that, whenever I'm faced with a difficult problem, I should just ask myself "what would J.C. do?"

...just kidding, my mom's Jewish. But seriously, he's a TV host, not a prophet.

Fair points all. It comes down to different ways of drawing boundaries.

My underlining principle for cars that truly get me excited is "more control, please". Has been for awhile, will be for the foreseeable future. Yes we talk pickups and SUVs and sedans and luxury barges and all that, but those don't stoke my fires the way sports cars do and thus are somewhat exempt from that same line of reasoning. That's the generality of it for me.

For the specifics:

Manuals - They're more fun. My personal definition of an enthusiast is someone who seeks to have fun with or enjoy the object of their enthusiasm. Thus, manuals seem like something we should all be on board with. Contradictory viewpoints tend to stem from a lack of understanding and/or a need to play devil's advocate. That's how my universe almost always works, and how dieselstation has predominantly worked since its inception.

Motorcycles - Someday I'll give them an extended try to see what I've been missing. Until then, based on limited experience, I must admit they seem pretty damned alien to me and lack about 90% of the things that make me like cars.

Wait, are we just talking about transmissions here, or in general?

Transmissions.

While I do agree that a manual offers more control and is a more enjoyable experience I would never ignore a paddle shift sports car just because its got paddles.

Nor I, that's far too black and white. I look at it in degrees. A manual is the best choice, but a torque converter automatic, CVT, single-clutch sequential, or dual-clutch sequential transmission can range from bad to good. Bad makes it a significantly worse choice than a manual, whereas good is approaching a manual. There are practically no cases where any of these 2-pedal choices are superior to a manual in a performance application in concept (though they do say that the G35/G37's manual is worse than the auto, which is grounds to cross that car off my interest list entirely), but the best of them will be maybe 90%, 95%, 98% as good as a manual.