Today’s Rolling Sloane was supposed to be a comparison of two small yet stylish city cars: the Fiat 500 and the MINI Cooper. However, due to the idiocy of the general populus and most car dealers’ demonstrator ordering procedures, I was unable to test-drive both cars with similar engines and proper MANUAL transmissions. Instead this is going to be a rambling hate-filling manifesto on the ills of modern society and the automatic transmission.
The automatic transmission, particularly in a small underpowered car, is the height of laziness and sloth. How fucking hard is it to change gear? Having watched this week’s Top Gear where a group of disabled British Army veterans drove two manual transmission off-road racing Land Rovers at high speed around Wales, I can say that anyone who wants to say that they personally can’t drive a stick-shift is obviously completely full of shit. I’ve taught a number of people how to use two feet whilst driving (or yelled at them slightly intoxicated from my own passenger’s seat to actually learn how to drive properly before you volunteer to drive me home), and it is just not that hard. Hell, the NASA moon watch is a manual wind Omega Speedmaster, because it’s better for the task at hand than an automatic, just like a manual transmission is better at getting the most out of an underpowered car. The only acceptable use of an Automatic transmission is in an amply powered luxury car where a harsh shift would completely ruin the experience. Maserati discovered this when they first marketed the current generation Quattroporte only with an F1-style transmission. Clearly a tiny city car is not in any way party to this extraordinary exception to the rule.
A stick-shift car is going to be safer due to the fact that you are going to have total control of the car, and are forced to focus on the road ahead. A press of the clutch completely cuts the power to the drive wheels, which allows the car to stop or slow down faster than an Automatic where there is engine power that the brakes have to overcome even at idle. By selecting your own gears, using both hands and feet to drive, and having total control over the car, an intelligent person with any semblance of hand-eye coordination is forced to be a better driver in a Manual car. Whereas, Automatic transmissions equipped cars allow their so-called “drivers” to do things in a car other than focusing on actually driving. That moron in a Toyota next to you in traffic on her phone, eating, and then fixing her hair should be focusing her clearly limited brain cells on driving. She won’t, because like all Toyota drivers she’s a mouth breathing borderline idiot who obviously uses Internet Explorer and as evidenced by the toddler in the back seat is too dumb to take a pill at the same time every day. Yes, she’s going to cause an accident, and should have been given a lifetime bus pass and tubal ligation in kindergarten, but I digress. You have a choice to be an involved an attentive motorist who uses both hands and feet to drive, or another appliance driving imbecile. The Beach Boys weren’t talking about a little deuce coupe with a column shift slush box; no it was a four on the floor. If only the people at the nearest MINI dealer knew that they were not selling Asian appliances, then I could tell you that the Fiat is a bit more comfortable but not as fun to drive with its electric power steering.
