~ Once you have an M3 or MB with supple napa leather all else is subpar I guess.
We had a white 4 door M3 with beige leatherette. I wish we would have kept that car ? There’s no doubt a softer leather would have felt nicer. I’m just lucky I married a girl that fights me for every dime spent and somehow convinced me I’d “survive” with a base M3. Believe me dude, I deserve the best (in my mind) ?
The Supra taught us that the Z4 deserves more attn and respect than it gets. I passed on an older sDrive35is years ago assuming it was rubbish. I might not have a Supra now if I'd gone ahead.
The GT4 Supras are still being built and delivered with the ZF and the 8th gear locked out. If the manual was capable of putting out faster lap times, they'd move over to it.
Interestingly, I almost pulled the trigger on a Z4 M just before the manual Supra was announced.
We keep bringing this up, as evidenced by pretty much all race cars now being paddle shift, even on a sequential box, with no lift and auto blip. A manual car is slower any time *ANY SHIFTING* is done. But we still have people here saying a manual can theoretically be as fast in situations that never happen. ?
Nah.. You're right, it's just logic that the automatic in 2023 is faster but I have a theory..
Agreed. We've also been saying the MT in a Supra is for the novelty of shifting only. The car doesn't need a manual nor built for it. It's an afterthought. Which is, of course, great since that's what everyone is after. It scratches the itch just fine.Nah.. You're right, it's just logic that the automatic in 2023 is faster but I have a theory..
While it pains me to say it, after having driven the manual a bit, well.. the manual very much feels like an automatic. I mean, yes there's a clutch and yes there's gears to row.. but its not at all a challenging experience. And anyone who says this manual is a pain to drive in traffic is soft as melted butter.
It may sound counter intuitive - and this may be a modern car manual problem rather than a Supra specific problem - but the whole manual experience seems a bit synthetic. What I mean is that in the Supra it really doesn't matter what gear I'm in or where in the rev range I am as above 1800RPM, it's monstrously quick everywhere. I know that in many ways this is a good thing but it also largely defeats the purpose of gearing.
As a direct comparison, my 2008 Type R had such limited torque (and power for that matter) that if I wasn't in the power band I wasn't going anywhere. Keeping her in the top end of the rev range and shifting perfectly was key. If I got anything wrong, I was painfully slow. This made me get better over time and it was this challenge that really brought the manual experience to the fore for me.
In the Supra, shifting the manual feels like a bit of an afterthought and quite insincere - like those electronic manuals everyone is developing for electric cars. It really doesn't matter how good or bad I am at shifting or maintaining the revs because the car feels like it has been designed to get the job done regardless. Apart from the horrible 1-2 shift which requires a deft touch (and lets face it, a quick prayer), a shaved down monkey could drive the manual Supra quickly. And that's shit for everyone.. except for shaved down monkeys I guess. Which brings me to the idea that this ease of driving quickly might go some way to explaining why some people (erroneously) claim the manual is as quick (or quicker) than the automatic.
When I saw all those initial track reviews where "reporters" basically just left the manual car in third or fourth and drove around the entire track at full speed I knew something wasn't quite right.
Am I glad I bought the manual: Yes. Am I glad I didn't buy an automatic? In many ways I think maybe I did. ?
I just said " Now, thats not to say I'm claiming the six speed manual is going to beat the automatic in every scenario outside of those, or vice versa." so I'm curious as to what you are mentioning that for?
I’m with ya. I don’t want to drive on auto pilot either. I use the paddle shifter almost exclusively. However there are times that I push the drive stick up or down to change gears. Such as backing out of the driveway with the wheel turned > 45 degrees.
a lightning speeds! Yet I still love my little MX5 manual. Like @lmfao said, it’s a blast when you get a lower powered car‘s gears just right and stay on her sweet spot, so to speak ?Paddle shifters just dont' do it for me. I will say (and this is only my opinion, so I'm obviously not expecting people to agree because its specific to my situation) that paddle shifters are a significant improvement over a regular slushbox though.I’m with ya. I don’t want to drive on auto pilot either. I use the paddle shifter almost exclusively. However there are times that I push the drive stick up or down to change gears. Such as backing out of the driveway with the wheel turned > 45 degrees.
F1 qualifying today at Silverstone. It’ll be fun to watching those guys ripping through 8 gears
100% of us used to say the same until we drove a *good* AT.
