All my cars bar one have been what Americans – with admirable directness – call stick-shifts. Initially I had no option, the alternative was too expensive. Later, sharing a deep-seated prejudice with many other Brits, I rejected automatics on the grounds they were somehow louche. My penultimate car, a six-speed manual gearbox Lexus, was the most satisfying I have ever owned.So why for the last two-and-a-half years have I owned an automatic? To encrusted types the answer is brief: it’s an old man’s car. But an equally truthful response might have been: I like the technology. I need only flick the drive selector a few centimetres towards the passenger and it becomes a manual gear-change, albeit without the need for a clutch pedal. The first car to offer that system I know of was a Porsche and it probably cost zillions. My present car is not a Porsche.
Take a trip inside the gearbox and there are more wonders. Traditional automatic gearboxes (called slushpumps in America), consist of two opposing but separate propellors linked by surrounding fluid. Such systems are wasteful of energy. Fine if you have bhp to spare, as most Americans cars have. Less so with European and Japanese hatchbacks.
But my car has a truly automatic gearbox. It incorporates two clutches, one for the odd-numbered gears, one for the evens. As a driver I remain blissfully ignorant of their function as they help change the six gears in milliseconds. Oh, I almost forgot: my present car cost two-thirds the price of the Lexus. More later about its remarkable engine.
