mitsubishi

So I composed a list for North American car manufacturers offering a manual transmission in their line up. I found a lot of interesting things when searching through different car web pages, especially gaudy flair.

The Alfa Romeo webpage was by far the most confusing of them all. I tried to get a simple spec sheet that took me more than 6 minutes to find, I should have been paid for fanyarin’ that kazi. Porsche also has too many options for their cars that they fail in giving a clean webpage to properly choose and differentiate between the options. Honestly, if you are getting a brand new Porsche, find a dealership and let them help you with those choices. The easiest page was Scion, nothing flashy and quite simple to understand and build my car.

Few surprises were with Audi only having manuals for its A4, A5, and R8 lines, this includes S models. They had the easiest and cleanest web configuration when building a car out of the other luxury brand vehicles. Volkswagen also shares parts with the A3 through the A6 models, so I was surprised that the A3 didn’t have a manual transmission standard/option, yet all Volkswagen’s do. With the release of the new Lamborghini Huracan I won’t be surprised if the new R8 V10 loses the manual option too.

The three Japanese luxury brands have essentially phased out all manual transmissions in their line up. I know Acura is now officially overseen by U.S. management as of the beginning of this year, so I’m not sure if the ILX will even remain a manual. Infiniti hasn’t released its official Q60 coupe since it shares engines with the Fairlady Z and Lexus decided the IS models don’t need manuals anymore.

For the American brands, Ford had options on almost all their sedans and coupes besides the Taurus. Chevrolet and Dodge also had a great line-up for a manual transmission package on their cars. As for luxury U.S. cars, Buick and Cadillac had at least one or two options performance cars with manual options.

Lotus, Porsche, and Subaru were my all time favorites. They still offer manuals as standard and their line-up’s were amazing. The BMW range disappoints me, it looks like they are slowly trying to let go of the manual. However I’m glad the M6 and M5 still have that option available.

Just like Ying + Yang, the moon and the sun, or leaves and butts; they all go together. Its sad to hear that the rivalry between two great automobiles might be ending. The two I’m talking about are the Mitsubishi Evolution (Evo) and the Subaru Impreza WRX STi (STi). These two have been going head to head ever since the rally days and forged enthusiasts and die hard fans with their on going war. Both cars equally having phenomenal performance specs; making fans strain when deciding which is the better of the two.

In the background one was clearly taking a lead. Subaru as a company was doing well in sales especially on their Outbacks, Legacy, and Impreza models. On the other hand Mitsubishi hasn’t seen good sales records in their automobiles in a while (especially in U.S. markets), making it more difficult for the company to produce the high performance sedan or reviving the 3000GT (GTO). However an improved Lancer has been released in Malaysia, so who knows!