Clarkson on: manual gearboxes
It’s much better to have a manual when you are driving on a track for fun. Because then you are in charge and you have more control. But at all other times, a car with a manual gearbox is like a television with no remote control. A damn nuisance.
Speed is one thing. A while back, Richard Hammond and I had a bit of a drag race - with police permission, I should add, in case the Daily Mail is reading this - on a Romanian motorway. He was in a Ferrari California with a double-clutch flappy-paddle gearbox. I was in an Aston Martin DBS with manual. Both cars accelerated at exactly the same rate, but every time I changed gear, I would drop back about 10 feet. His changes were seamless. Mine weren’t. Mine couldn’t be.
Oh, I know there will be some snuffly noses and damp handkerchiefs from the purists. But look at it this way: when we are all driving hybrid cars that can find their way around by themselves and sipping fuel in the same way that a vicar sips his tea at an old lady’s funeral, there’s nothing to stop people who crave the past driving a big V8 with a manual ‘box and a longwave radio.