The problem (and they finally learned this on The Grand Tour and pivoted to only travel “specials” instead) with Top Gear in 2020 is that it offers essentially nothing unique. You can watch “Top Gear”-ish content 24/7 and more of it is uploaded every week.

Former Subaru Legacy GT owner, so turbo 2.5L EJ like the Forster XT.

Also, you’ll notice they have no problem whatsoever when an athlete or entertainer makes pro-conservative comments. None of them told Tim Tebow to shut up and throw more incompletions when he made anti-abortion commercials. Or tells Curt Schilling to stop making racist memes and stick to being retired.

I’m here to go to bat for the DSG. I drove manuals the first 15ish years I was licensed, until a deer killed my Subaru Legacy GT last year. Because options for AWD, compact sedans are so limited, I ended up getting a 2015 Audi A3 2.0T as it was the closest analogue to that Legacy around in terms of performance numbers …

Yep. There is no objective argument to be made that anything in this country works, unless you have a net worth of several million dollars. You could spend your entire life doing things “the right way” and be earning several hundred thousand dollars per year, and if you have an untimely medical diagnosis at the same…

Serious question - what’s more engaging about driving an electric car than an automatic ICE car? Seems about exactly the same to me - in either case, all you’re doing is operating a throttle and brake pedal. 

Sorry, your anecdotal experiences with a handful of people don’t mean anything.

They’ll also be gone before relatively long because electric cars will not have a gearbox at all. It’s literally only a matter of time (some places in Europe are already doing this) that internal combustion engine vehicles will be outlawed and phased out. 

A manual transmission fetishist is calling someone else obnoxious? Pot, meet kettle.

As someone with 15 years of manual driving and guitar/bass/drum playing experience, this isn’t a valid comparison.

The WRX sadly also has big issues with rev hang that requires tuning to remove. 

There’s still a bit of a lag

It’s not going to happen for manuals in 20 years, because by that point the vast majority of cars sold will be electric with no gearbox whatsoever. Sorry to burst that bubble. 

Or more realistically, the car was stolen because an idiot left their keys in it and/or left it running. 

Right? I could roll a blunt while eating a burrito driving a manual car (not that I would) at this point, it’s so second nature.

Oh look, another Serious Professional Driver who thinks because someone doesn’t want to deal with pressing a clutch pedal 500 times each day to and from work in traffic, means they must just be BAD AT IT BRO.

What exactly is thrilling and engrossing about mindlessly operating a manual transmission in stop and go traffic? Once I learned how to do it at age 16-17, it required exactly zero thought or consideration. It was a much a background mental process for me as folding laundry. Not engaging. Just kinda there.

Maybe you sucked at driving stick?

Yes! This is exactly where owning a manual is fun.

Fucking ‘A.