I have been reading in certain American car magazines how some people have been attacking the new Porsche Carrera GT clutch as being too hard to use. I mean, GROW UP. Try any vintage WO Bentley or try a car with any of the great gearboxes of the past. It is an art to master any of these. And when you execute a smooth change, you feel as if you have actually accomplished something.

Let's face it, no one can go 200mph on a public road, with maybe the exception of the Autobahn. The real joy of high speed vehicles is operating them properly and nothing satisfies like a well-executed gearshift. With paddle shifters, by the time you have any sensation you are doing 180mph, you are in jail. There is a real choreography in learning how to execute a wonderful shift quickly.

Cars like the Maserati Quattroporte and the Aston Martin Vanquish I would not even consider because they don't come with a manual 'box. I would have paid anything to have got a manual in the Mercedes-McLaren SLR. It is really almost a perfect car, except I don't feel as if I am involved with it as with the Ford GT or Carrera GT.

If I choose to downshift at the wrong time, that's MY choice. I'd like to be able to do that! It's like you don't always eat healthy. I know and apple is better for me, but sometimes I want a slice of pizza. If I see a patch of sand and there's no-one around, maybe I want to punch it, get a little sideways as I come out of the turn. I know it is juvenile but it's what I like to do.

The other annoying thing about these electronic gearboxes is that they are better than you are. You can pretend when you paddle shift manually that you can do it better than the electronics. Maybe Michael Schumacher can, but you really can't You can play with the paddle shifter but you are really only playing with it and the electronic brain is saying "Are you through fooling around now?"

Cars like these don't NEED you.

To me people bonded with their cars in the early days, especially with things like the MG's or TR2's or 3s. You found what we used to call the "sweet spot": You'd reach a certain rev and know you'd only have to apply the most minimal amount of pressure and the lever would move forward. There was a great deal of pleasure and accomplishment in doing that.

Sometimes you can improve a car's gearshift. I have a Citroen SM. It had a very nice plastic gearshift **** on it but the thread wore out. So we made and identical gearshift **** out of solid aluminum, the exact same shape, polished it and had it anodized black and it has a wonderful feel. It's one of those things you either get or you don't. It sits perfectly in the palm of you hand. You move it around forwards and back, left and right and there's a wonderful mechanical feel to it.

As supercars become more and more practical, people buy them for more practical reasons. Buying a car should be a rational decision made irrationally.

A friend of mine wanted to buy a Porsche but he said: "I'm going to by the automatic because in traffic..."

AARGH!!! It's like having a mistress who can cook. I don't want to eat dinner. I'm not going there to have dinner.

In terms of most pleasurable gear-change, the McLaren F1 is definitely up there. Just take a look at the Driving Ambition book and you realize the amount of effort that went into getting the proper gear-change, literally that rifle-bolt CLICK-CLICK. You feel it click in, you know it's in. You've heard it. You've felt it. That's probably best gear-change ever made.

The Porsche Carrera GT is probably the modern version of that. The Carrera GT gearbox is pretty amazing. You realize that you are seeing the finest incarnation of a gearbox there can be. The fact that they only have this clutch, which is ceramic and is good for 40,000 miles of hard burnouts, is an amazing feat. Because one of the big failings of most supercars is you are not going to risk a $5,000.00 clutch just to beat a kid in a GTI. Or maybe you are, but it's still going to cost you $5,000.00.

But Porsche has solved this problem with the ceramic clutch. No longer do you have the embarrassment of some spotty teenager blowing you off at the stoplight. I want to thank Porsche for letting me keep my immaturity.

 

It couldnt have been said any better... Lexus needs to get with this and make the V8 a manual!!!

 

Sorry homey, ain't gonna happen. Lexus is all about making money and selling to enthusiasts does not make money. Unless you over charge all your vehicles like Porsche, BMW, mercs and Ferraris do. But Lexus has not earn the right to charge whatever they want yet. Notice that ever since Toyota stop making fun to drive sportscars, they make more money than ever? The moment they have a great sportscar, sale starts to plummet soon after. All the money use for R/D and toolings are wasted. That money can be used to design more electronic nannies to better protect us from all the people who feels the need to nail it when they see a patch of sand cuz they like to do that kind of stuff.

 

Great read, thanks for sharing Mike!!

 

Great read, the man speaks the truth!

Thanks for the read Mike. BTW, what is the source if you don’t mind me asking?

 

to Leno, good read ! Thanks Mike.

 

Well, for a guy who would not consider a supercar purchase without a manual box, Leno sure shelled out a WHOLE LOT of bucks for a M-M SLR without one....those cars START at 450K without the inevitable markups and taxes. Shows you that a manual box isn't everything....even on a supercar.

 

Well, considering how many cars he collects, it's no surprise he'll still shell out $$$ for a less than perfect super car, $450K is nothing to Leno.
If I have $450K+ to blow on a super sports car, the SLR will not even be under consideration, the lack of a manual is the prime reason.

 

I love Leno's attitude towards cars. He still maintains that love of automobiles in general that for the most part has left society.

I truly loved the section where he referred to old MG's & Triumphs! I recall my father telling me stories of his 1962 MGA when I was young. By far this was his favorite car. He explained to me how the cluth on the MG did not operate like clutches of today (he was telling me this while teaching me how to drive manual shift when I was 16.) Normally he would have to double-clutch every shift. But Leno also touched on the "sweet spot". He explained it exactly the way my father told me. He said that you would almost feel like you were part of the car. He could just hear it in the revs. everything was ready to shift. No clutch. Just a slight nudge of the shifter and bang, you're in the next gear!!! So in essence, both Leno and my Dad were saying that they could hear/feel that the gears were at the same speed so no clutch woul dbe necessary. Awesome stuff!!

 

Jay is oldschool, he'll always find things to knock on new cars, but accepts and glorifies all the shortcomings of old cars. It's all good, cuz the man knows who he is and what he wants.

 

Reread his quote. Leno says that the GT's trans is quite possibly the best one he has ever driven.

 

Recognising greatness and liking it are two different things. I guarantee you Jay still prefers the flawed unit in those pre WW2 clunker he keeps driving around to work in cuz he likes to get to the zone on his own. In other words, he'd rather give himself a flawed hand job than pay a very good stripper to do a better job for him even tho he knows she's probably the best he's ever tried.

 

Leno owns just about everything that is coinsidered fast or collectable. He and Seinfeld both have a massive Porsche collection and know them better than most anyone, since they are both car nuts. If Jay speaks, I listen. He is the voice of reason and experience.

 

I truly don't believe that he fails to recognize that some new transmissions may be able to do the job better, but what he is relaying is the fact that some of the "feel" of driving, the actual experience is lost. Remember that just because it is new, does not necessarily make it better. Plus, I guarantee that his pre-WWII "clunkers", which happens to include quite possibly the finest automobile ever made, the Dusenberg, are in vastly superior mechanical condition than more than 50% of the new cars on the road today.

 

I didn't say he couldn't recognize great designs, I''m just saying what he was saying, he prefers the old stuff where the machine doesn't do all the work for you.

True, his old cars are in better shape than 50% of cars on public roads, but they are still old and guaranteed to be less reliable and will leave him stranded and cause a public nuisance as it has many times.