Since we are a “standard” transmission loving site, I’ve finally created a concept shirt for the site. Worked on a few for 4 months and finally decided to print one. If anyone is interested I’ll print more if I gauge enough interest on orders.

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.
NϋR Package for those who want to go crazy on the circuit…
So the NϋR package comes with its own distinct additions, but with a limited production of 50 Toyota offers other exclusive additions with this package. Such as instructional sessions on the Nurburgring itself, lodging, free entrance for a limited time, and other goods. Hopefully they have a LFA at the track all the time, because it wouldn’t do any good to ship your car there. (pictured below are standard and Nur)
Such a cool shot of the Japanese dream team!
Well its finally been accepted and Toyoda-San has moved from thinking everything in Toyota needs to be efficient to adding some fun in the brand. Since the FRS/86 received such praise! Its fortunate that at least Nissan knew this and released their GTR to the world and people welcomed it with open wallets and arms.
Now its time for Toyota to release their secret weapon, the Toyota Supra! I really can’t wait for this machine to be rendered and finally put into production. Its not only Toyota too, other companies such as Honda and Jaguar are doing the same.
Article below:
http://www.asiaone.com/Motoring/News/Story/A1Story20121101-380919.html