nytimes: In a World of Automatics, a Rare Shift for Mazda

[fuji345]

Sorry if old, but a good read.

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/in-a-world-of-automatics-a-rare-shift-for-mazda/#more-30557

[mysleeper6]

Good read.

[MaikuMS3]

good read.

mostly when people buy stick shift, they love cars and love to mod them and save gas too.

[BillTheCat]

Good article.

One of the things I liked about the MINI Cooper S in its first few years was that there were no automatics. I had a friend who was driving the base MC with CVT auto because he couldn't drive stick. But it drove him insane that he could not keep up with the MCS drivers on road trips or track days. And there was simply no way to mod the MC to match the MCS back in 2004. (There are turbo kits for those 1st gen MC's now)

So he relented & had me teach him to drive stick. I gained new respect for him that day. And within a few weeks, he had traded his MC for a new MCS.

Of course, BMW/MINI saw the dollar signs from all of those folks who wanted autos and relented.

Kudos to Mazda/Mazdaspeed for sticking with the stick.

[Protege52003]

good mornig read. when we got ot Jetta last year, my wife wanted to get the standard tranny vs the 6 speed auto!

not normal, especially for a woman!

-R

[stevekt]

I went to a club one time and the valet was running late so he had his son fill in for a little bit. As soon as he saw my car was a stick he asked me to park it myself because he couldn't drive a stick. ;)