Re: American's and stick shifts

[Marc_Nguyen@mail.amsinc.com]

Mike Veglia wrote:

> I can see F1 technology eventualy filtering down to the street car level.
The
> tiptronic is a step in the right direction but until they go to an
electonic
> clutch/gear selecter it is still a slushbox. I believe Ferrari has put
the F1
> gearbox into a (supercar) street car haven't they? Of course those paddle
> switches would still be "in the way" of more important things than paying
> attention to driving such as cel phones, make up and big macs ;-)

Recent issue of R&T compared a bunch of high-end sports cars/sports
coupes/whatever you want to call them (i.e. 911, Viper, 'Vette, Z-Roadster,
etc).  Anyway, a paddle shifter F355/F1 was one of the cars and there was
an interesting little graph that compared the shift times of a standard
stick-shift 355 and a paddle-shift 355.  The paddle-shifter was
considerably quicker.  I still prefer to row my own gears with clutch
pedal, but I thought the comparison was interesting.

Marc N.
'93 S4
'85 urq