[V8] What's it worth?...was '93 V8 5-speed

[Roger M. Woodbury]

Ah, no. Not missing a point at all. The 4.2 engine does several things 
better than does the 3.6, mostly in the low end grunt department.  I have 
had both, and for general day in/out driving, for me, there is little 
practical difference.  Bear in mind, I do not drive in normal urban traffic 
but in the magical open spaces of rural Maine.  The 4.2 uses marginally more 
gas and leaks marginally more oil once accumulated some miles.

The '92-94 cars have some nice features not found in the '90-91 cars, the 
only one of which I really liked was Servitronic steering.

We can argue the stick versus autobox deal forever.  I personally don't give 
a whit for an automatic transmission although thirty years ago I was 
absolutely convinced that I would NEVER drive an automatic transmission car. 
Now it would have to be a very unusual car for me to own and drive every day 
to convince me that my left leg needed more exercise.  For me, the thing 
that killed off the thought of a stick shift forever was my first Porsche 
928.  I never tracked that car, nor ever thought about it.  But one night on 
the highway near the Tappanze Bridge crossing over to New Jersey in a light 
rain, some dumb broad in a bigass Cadallac decided RIGHT THEN she needed the 
precise spot on the pavement that I was occupying.  I saw only a flash out 
of my left eye and knew someone was coming inside my car to visit.  At sixty 
five there was no hesitation and I snapped the wheel right, sending the 928 
into a sideways slide angling over into the breakdown lane.  Seeing the edge 
of the pavement and reflector stalks approaching, I tried one time to avoid 
flying off the edge of the road. I snapped the wheel hard left, and slapped 
the automatic shifter into "3" while flooring the accelerator.  The car (I 
swear much better than I was), seemed to know what to do, and snapped into a 
left slide, this time along the breakdown lane.

I made a hard right on the wheel, keeping the accelerator down hard. The 
automatic box, designed by Mercedes but made to fit into a case designed by 
Porsche, went down to second, and we were heading straight ahead 
accelerating in the breakdown lane.  The Cadillac sedately cruising alone in 
the lane I had just seconds before vacated.

The automatic in that Porsche was seamless and faster than I ever would have 
been in that emergency maneuver, had I needed to use a clutch since I was 
not at all ready for any sort of emergency maneuver at least from the side 
or rear which was that case.  So as much as I like clutches especially in 
some vehicles, I'll stick to the automatic box in day to day driving, and 
hope the torque converter doesn't suddenly fall out on the pavement.

I would like to go to Carlisle this May. Right now all I can see doing is 
Lars Andersen, though. We'll see.

Roger


-----Original Message----- 
From: bw at UDel.Edu
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 3:23 PM
To: Ricky Joshi ; Roger M. Woodbury
Cc: V8 at audifans.com
Subject: Re: [V8] What's it worth?...was '93 V8 5-speed

Missing a point. '93s have 4.2 engines, but they are also advanced beyond 
the '90-
'92 V8s in many ways. The headliner is what you would expect in a luxury 
car. One
touch sunroof etc.
A '93 with a stick is a great big sports car. Shifting all the time would 
get old,
however a '93 manual would get my vote over other years. See you at Carlisle 
in, is
it May?