Quote:
Originally Posted by BMWCCA1
I don't track my cars anymore. Just don't have the time. But when I did, it was always a stick BMW. Now I won't have anything but a stick for my daily driver but then I live in an area where it is still fun to drive every day.
I had the opportunity a few years back to do the BMW M-Performance 2-Day Advanced Driving School at VIR for a Roundel article. We had both SMG and 3-pedal M3s from which to choose. At the end of Day One I'd had lots of track time in both in their lead-follow format. At the end of one session the instructor came over to my car to tell what a good session that had been and noticed I was in a 3-pedal car. He expressed surprise and told me that as smooth as my transitions were, he figured I was in an SMG. That brought on a discussion about which he and the other professional drivers actually preferred, which was overwhelmingly the 3-pedal car. Granted this was in the days of SMG, not DCT, or hot-rodded Steptronics masquerading as DCT that we have now. But I took the point that even the pros enjoy a good stick-shift.
At the end of the second day I was getting a bit tired and switched to the SMG for the last session. It was more relaxing, and far less challenging. At that point I was ready for that driving style. So there is room for both!
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As I stated earlier, I've only ever owned and driven manuals. Outside of some 10,000 miles in my Dad's 1972 Marquis and my current pickup (at 84,000), out of my 1M+ miles driven, not even 100,000 are in an automatic.
Yet yesterday, I was test driving a '87 E30 convertible I was considering buying. I had an E30 sedan for 18 years and 257,000 miles, so driving one is pretty much as familiar to me as putting on a shoe. The E30 I was looking at only had 108,000 miles and lived its life in rural Rappahannock county and adult driven, so it should have been in good shape. Yet, when I tried to launch it out of its gravel covered parking space, I stalled it twice.
Granted the clutch felt much different to what I remember my E30 was, but it got me to thinking, three of my four BMWs are electronic throttle, with the forth my wife's '97 throttle-by-cable M44 E37. Could it be the magical analog to digital conversion of movement of the gas pedal masks poor driver throttle control?
I never stall the Z3. But it sure got me thinking this morning...