The writing’s been on the wall ever since the first performance car with an automatic trans was finally quicker than the manual version. For me, that was the last gen Pontiac GTO, or possibly the ‘93 Taurus SHO. That changed everything. For some time automatics had been getting better gas mileage and therefore had all but completely replaced manuals in the low cost economy car class, but manuals still maintained an edge in acceleration so you could still find them in most performance applications. Thanks to this new generation of automatics, all of a sudden anybody could go fast in a performance car. It was the one last hurdle OEM’s had to conquer to finally be able to start getting rid of manual transmissions. For the first time in history, performance car buyers had to choose between getting the quickest version of their cars and the most gratifying to drive. To make matters worse, some OEM’s stopped offering manuals altogether! So you see, the degradation of the performance car has been a long process and electrification is just the latest twist. Don’t have to like it but we’re stuck with it.
Thats the part I like. First time I really noticed that was many years ago watching Harley nitro bikes. The resonating in my chest was unbelievable....almost felt like I was having a heart attack.
