GT350......DEAD!!

I don't buy race cars. I don't drive around race tracks. I buy street cars. I drive them on the street. In my 31 years of driving, I've had many stick shift cars and many automatic cars. Every. Singe. Time. The stick shift has been more fun and engaging to drive. My DD is a 5 speed manual Focus with barely 165 hp and it's entertaining to drive if I want it to be.

My wife's van has paddle shifters. I used them once. Once. It's not the same. Not even close.

JJ427R said:

Not denying that feeling, but most guys who complain about the paddles and not having that stick have yet to even drive a car with paddles. You still get to shift the car, your just doing it in a different way. And it does not take very long to get accustomed to, as now I get into my 2010 Roush and catch myself reaching for the paddles, as well as that damn push button start....

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IMHO, the pull of a paddle will never be a replacement for the feel of clutch, shifter and driver working in harmony.

this is not to say that driving a paddle shifted car is not a great experience... just total different connection to the experience.

JJ427R said:

And I've also yet to hear a race car driver get out of a paddle shifted car and say they wish it had a stick.

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How many of those drivers choose paddle over stick on their good times street cars?

Too bad to see it go, cool car. I've seen some on the road occasionally, certainly more than I would have expected.

My younger brother had an internship with SVT while the GT350 was being designed, it was pretty cool to have the inside scoop on the cross plane crank (and it's issues), carbon fiber wheels etc. before any of the general public had any idea. Sworn to secrecy at the time, obviously...

JJ427R said:

Not denying that feeling, but most guys who complain about the paddles and not having that stick have yet to even drive a car with paddles. You still get to shift the car, your just doing it in a different way. And it does not take very long to get accustomed to, as now I get into my 2010 Roush and catch myself reaching for the paddles, as well as that damn push button start....

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I understand what you are saying. I am sure the shifter vs paddle goes both ways also. Me personally I prefer shifting the car. I understand that the EXPERTS say the paddles are quicker and more efficient.

LikeabossTM said:

How many of those drivers choose paddle over stick on their good times street cars?

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It depends somewhat on European or American drivers? When you look at the cars European guys drive, I would say quite a number actually, as most of the high end sports cars now all come with paddles. Believe Lamborghini is the only one still building a gated shifter?

Here in America seems most of the NASCAR drivers roll in a Pickup, Escalade or Range Rover. Yes most have their collections with the manual shifted cars but their daily drivers are auto trans.

Entirely different scenario, but have you ever noticed that most over the road truckers personal vehicles are automatics, as they get tired of shifting?

Quicker and more efficient. Sure. No doubt. There's more to the experience than quicker and more efficient if you aren't racing. And most are not racing.

More and more tech goes into the new cars taking away from the need for a driver even. Not a fan of tech that replaces or overrides driver's input.

Once again not denying or arguing that. I miss shifting a manual very much and wish I still could, but being paralyzed changed that situation for me and I have to say I get just as much enjoyment using the paddles as I did shifting, but that's my person opinion and situation. Good thing the option is still out there for everyone!

I think back to my high speed motorcycle riding days, I always wished I could get my bike to shift quicker, and if I had paddles on a fast bike now how great that would be!

That would be the quickshifter for bikes, just click the shifter. The gadget cuts power. Never had one on any of my bikes. Never felt the need to shift quicker.

I had a 71 Triumph Tiger, would never have wanted paddles on that. My highly modded 79 Yamaha XS11 Special I would have loved paddles as that bike would hit 150 mph so fast it would make your head spin, paddles on it and on a 1/4 mile would have been amazing! Fastest I ever went on it and the fastest I've ever gone on anything so far was 170 mph. I've yet to go faster than that. I can only imagine what some of the new bikes are like. I want a trike but the wife says no, that's why I have Mustangs!

Juice said:

That would be the quickshifter for bikes, just click the shifter. The gadget cuts power. Never had one on any of my bikes. Never felt the need to shift quicker.

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When I had my GSXR750 I would just ease up on the throttle real quick and flick the shifter. I can't imagine having to shift faster than that.

tjm73 said:

When I had my GSXR750 I would just ease up on the throttle real quick and flick the shifter. I can't imagine having to shift faster than that.

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Yes, clutchless shifting I do a lot. Like you said, blip&click.
Roadracers use quickshifters mostly. There are pushbutton airshifters for drag. No throttle blip required.

Back to my original point: tech doing driver/rider tasks. lol

Juice said:

More and more tech goes into the new cars taking away from the need for a driver even. Not a fan of tech that replaces or overrides driver's input.

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This ^^^

The fun is in doing all the little tasks that collectively make up what we call 'driving' and getting them somewhere close to right all by our own selves.

But that should surprise no one . . .


Norm

JJ427R said:

And I've also yet to hear a race car driver get out of a paddle shifted car and say they wish it had a stick.

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For an all-out race car, sure. Even I'd run some sort of paddle-shifted transmission if I was running close to the pointy end of some racing series with contingency payouts and needed to find a little more time in order to challenge for the win.

But as an ex-autocrosser (local/regional events) and occasional HPDE driver, paddles are a hard no. At HPDE I'm mainly competing against myself as a measure of how well the High Performance Driver Education is progressing. Don't need any artificial improvement in lap times coming from quicker shifting messing with that. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had a lot more automatic driving on my resume, but I don't so it is what it is.

I have no use for paddles in my street driving either. Not for as long as conventional 3-pedal manual transmissions are available, and even after that they'd only be the distant second "choice". Really, in my street driving I can't put all those hundreds of milliseconds of shift time "saved" together, save them, and do anything useful with them, so what's the point? Pushbutton luxury? Being served by my car's technologies? Nope, not me either.


Yes, I have driven a few cars with paddle-shifting, and driven all of them anywhere from 'spiritedly' to autocross-hard. And with one of those cars I found the also-present +/- gate at the shift lever far easier to adapt to than paddles. Remember, I haven't owned any automatic transmission vehicle at all in close to 50 years, or driven one with any regularity in over 15 (I drove a customer shuttle for a local dealership between 'regular' jobs and lived with it because I had to and was at least getting paid to put up with it).


Norm

Pentalab said:

At $60-$70K, did they sell many of em ?

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Sure, lots of people make more that I do.

BottleRocket
Arizona

This is a over and over discussion stick vs auto I have issues with back surgeries I choose a auto car with alot of HP at this point with me idgas

Chuck vmp said:

This is a over and over discussion stick vs auto I have issues with back surgeries I choose a auto car with alot of HP at this point with me idgas

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Let sleeping dogs lie
Pretty weak post to bump this thread up as it gives many of us bad memories of the stupid shit JJ would whine about.

Isn't JJ now posting as LarryJM?

eighty6gt said:

Isn't JJ now posting as LarryJM?

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I dont think so.