Would You Buy an Automatic Corvette, or Are You a Stick Shift Die Hard?
Nothing gets the Corvette Forum community hotter than a good old fashioned manual vs automatic debate.
It wasn’t that long ago when any car enthusiast worth his salt would never dream of buying a sports car with an automatic transmission. For starters, they were boring. And, more importantly, they were slow. But suddenly, manufacturers began developing slush boxes that were capable of shifting even faster than your local hot shoe. Which has ignited a fiery debate among the stodgiest of stick shift devotees and a new wave of automatic fans here at Corvette Forum.
For various reasons, quite a few manual fans have changed their minds in recent years. Including road pilot.
“In the good ol’ days I would never, ever have an auto. I drove a big rig for 4 million miles and now I would never, ever have a stick. If you have not driven a stick in years and you will be driving in traffic, you will find your left leg has gotten weak from not working a clutch.”
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of hardcore manual devotees like
RedBoy504 still out there in the world.
“I couldn’t even imagine my car being automatic. Where’s the fun? Where’s the driving experience? You drive an automatic. You become one with a 6-speed Corvette Z06. To me it’s an amazing experience. It’s like mind, body and soul. My uncle drove my car once and he said you don’t get in that car, you put it on. I have to agree. It’s like an Iron Man suit. It uses your whole body to control it, but you can do some amazing things with it. And minivans are automatic for a reason.”
Then again, Phanni thinks that automatics can be just as much fun.
“I learned to drive a stick shift almost 60 years ago. I have two Corvettes, both automatics. The C7 has the paddle shifters and can be just as much ‘fun’ as any stick, and the new autos are better than you are at shifting (if you don’t use the paddles). Driving a stick Corvette is fun, but it ain’t all that.”
Mr. Black thinks that there’s one place in this world for automatics, however – the drag strip.
“The only way I’d buy an automatic Corvette is if I was building a dedicated drag race car. And it would have to make so much power it was forcing me to drive the car. If the car I had now was automatic, I would have not bought it. And if I did, I would have regretted it.”
One thing’s for sure, few topics in this current automotive enthusiast world conjure up such strong emotions. So we want to know what you think. Head over here and tell us if you’ve become an automatic fan, or if you’d never even dream of letting a car shift for you!
