[Corrado68]

I was born and raised in Europe, got my First motorbike (with 3 manual gears!) about 35 years ago and went on with manual bikes and cars for about 25 years because you wouldn't even find cars with autos in Europe, back then.

Then, about 10 years ago, I changed job and had to start commuting in traffic 2-3 hours every day, so I switched to an auto. The first automatic was an Alfa Romeo with a sort of sport shift program, the first one to ever downshift for you when you were braking aggressively during a sporty drive. Nowhere near today's automatics, but a lot of fun for the time.

Then I moved to one BMW after the other, learning to love their ZF transmissions. The latest one (the ZF 8-speeds that is now standard on all bimmers) is simply amazing. In sport mode, it's sharp, crisp and it sounds amazing with a symphony of cracks, pops and burbles. And it's always ready to downshift at the right time, no delay. And of course you can drive it almost like a manual with the paddles.

However, after ten years of automatics, I realized that they were taking something away from my driving experience. They were allowing me to think about something else while I was driving. I was spending a lot of time in my sporty BMW's thinking about everything else, I was disengaged. Call me an old fart, but that was starting to take away a good part of the pleasure of driving.

When I bought my 2SS last summer, I made a deliberate choice, a commitment to stay engaged 100% when driving my Camaro, that's why I picked a manual. Yes, that's my daily driver, but now I commute only 5 minutes and it's all backroads. And it's all great fun!