[Dan1028]

Ok, I'll play.

I purchased an automatic for a couple of reasons. Let's get this out of the way first, though, that I do not think either transmission choice has any bearing on your capabilities as a human being, man or woman. The argument is silly. The competitiveness of shifting a transmission can and should ultimately come down to the track, if that is to be any qualitative measurement of skill, whereby two separate drivers can assess their skills with either transmission choice.

Second, the reasons. My wife cannot, and refuses to learn how to, drive a manual transmission. The argument came and went regarding trading in my old car, which was an automatic. I wanted to keep it and get a manual transmission for the Camaro. The deal, however, was that if I were to get a Camaro, we had no need for 3 cars, and she would have to be able to drive it in the event of an emergency. So, with that, I agreed to the auto Camaro.

It's been 11 years since I've driven a manual transmission car, so I'm not really disappointed with my choice. The car has twice as much power as my last car, and when I want to I can always use the paddle-shift function to choose my gears. No, it's not the same as a manual, but it's as close as I need. I just wish the manumatic operated off the shifter itself (push forward to upshift, pull back to downshift) rather than paddle shifting. The paddles are cumbersome in tight cornering maneuvers.