Most kids while growing up get to hear tales of the ‘cunning’ tortoise. In my house we heard tales of cars that could change gears by themselves. In 1986 when my aunty brought back a Peugeot 504 GL auto from the US, I saw this ‘imaginary’ miracle for the first time. Unfortunately, it had brain box problems and it never worked. In 1993, when my dad told me he was buying a Mercedes Benz 200 aka Regular which was automatic transmission, I knew there was a God that answered prayers and dreams. The following year he bought a BMW 520 auto, I became uncontrollable with joy!
At that time (early 90’s), it was so un-cool to own a ‘slush box’ (derogatory term used to describe cars with automatic transmission). People had all sorts reasons for not buying them; like ‘what if the battery runs flat how do I push it?’ you get a good battery and ensure the car is always in top shape that’s how! Why buy a car hoping to push it when it brakes down? Till this very minute that perception beats me.
In 1997 I told a friend that one day ‘all cars’ will be automatic. I was just a kid at the time, but like martin Luther king and barrack Obama that were motivated to say the ‘unthinkable’ at some point in time, my comments were likened to theirs. It drew strong criticisms from my peers. The basis of my comments hinged on the fact that F1 cars (the ultimate devices on 4 wheels) were not manual transmission. I believed that it was only a matter of time before the gains and advantages in F1 technology trickled down to every day cars and for a fact I knew that auto’s had been around since the early 1900’s.
One of such numerous advantages is the shift time between gears. In modern auto’s transition between gears takes place in mere milliseconds. What this means is that you can quickly accelerate through gears much faster than an equivalent manual box would. My fathers Benz 200 had a 3 speed box, today Mercedes has cars having 7 speed auto, Lexus has an 8 speed box. Gear change is seamless in these cars when compared to my dad’s jerky and violently hard changes in the Benz 200. In addition to their seamless shift, this new auto’s also incorporate a manual mode into its normal shift gate or via paddles mounted behind the steering wheel, as is the case in the Golf Mark V GTI. Fuel economy may arguably be another advantage. In theory, manuals will always achieve better mileage when compared with a similar model auto. The reason being in the way these boxes are built. The manual has a direct link from the engine to the engine to the wheels, while the auto relies on oil pressure and a fluid connection between the engine and the transmission to supply the drive. This causes a loss of energy leading to observed difference in economy between the two boxes. In the real world however, most auto’s achieve better milage numbers. The reason being that in large number of people, most do not shift their manual cars at the right time, they either shift too early or too late. A classical example is 2 exact Honda 2002 models (baby boy) in traffic on 3rd mainland bridge for over 3hours. After a while both drivers will get tired and may not pay complete attention to what they are doing. While in the auto this will not have an effect, as the car is preprogrammed to shift at specific conditions, the manual will suffer economy if the driver accelerates from stop say in gear 2.
Take a personal survey, how many of your friends still drive manuals? It’s likely you own an auto or plan to buy one pretty soon. Die hard manual ‘freaks’ will always argue over the advantages of driving a ‘manual’ that its fun, its fast, its economical etc. in response I ask is the bugatti veyron not fun? Is the bugatti veyron not fast? Ok maybe it’s not economical but who cares? It’s capable of doing 252MPh, 400Kmh! and its an auto.