AUTOMATIC V MANUAL
YOU SETTLE YOURSELF IN THE BIG, RED SEAT, CHECK the leg-room and assess the view of the screen in front of you. Then there is the eternal question of which of the cup-holders you should place your drink in. Soda safely stowed, the cinema lights dim and you think to yourself, maybe, just maybe, 007 will die this time… It’s with a similar mindset that I imagine you are beginning this feature. Maybe, just maybe, they will say that two pedals are better than three this time… To be honest this isn’t really about crowning a winner or taking sides. After all, there are plenty of reasons why people choose to or, more pertinently, have no choice but to buy one option rather than the other. No, this is hopefully more nuanced than that. It’s about seeing how much of the driving experience changes when you opt for either three pedals or two. Does a car’s character alter dramatically with an H-pattern rather than a pair of paddles? And if it does elicit a character change, is it more akin to a pre/post full frontal lobotomy comparison or a before/after first coffee of the morning contrast? (I realise that to some people both are equally extreme.)
Now, some will choose a manual purely on principle. Three pedals equals more involvement, therefore it’s the automatic choice, so to speak. However, if you’re sitting on the fence, then are there reasons over and above the pure method of operation that might make one type of transmission a more engaging experience than the other?
To help us investigate all this, there are two trucks in the pitlane of Bedford Autodrome’s West Circuit. One is a Renault Magnum with a manu… only kidding. One is disgorging two versions of the BMW M2 CS, our current evo Car of the Year. The black car with gold wheels is in fact the very car that we crowned ecoty champion in Scotland and it has a six-speed manual ’box. The pale grey car with black wheels is equipped with a seven-speed Dual Clutch Transmission (DCT).
Meanwhile, the other truck is unloading two Porsche 911s. In the dark blue corner is a Carrera S with a seven-speed manual gearbox. In the dark grey corner is a Carrera 4S with an eight-speed Porsche Doppelkupplungsgetriebe (PDK).
Despite this being at a track, there is no intention to strap the timing gear on today. For a start, we know from past experience that the self-swappers will be a bit quicker. Plus there is the muddying complication of the 911s having different driveshaft counts (yes, we did try to get two the same, but it wasn’t possible). Out of interest, the manufacturer claims are that a manual M2 CS is 0.2 seconds slower than a DCT car in a dash to 62mph. The gap is a much wider 0.7sec with comparable 992s because a Carrera S with a manual reaches the benchmark in 4.2 seconds while a PDK car with Sport Chrono does the same sprint in 3.5 seconds.
Initially I’m keen to extract another, perhaps more pertinent performance figure from the cars. First off it’s into the PDK 911 and, after warming it up for a couple of laps, I let it run up to the limiter in second gear. At which point the digital speedo nestled in the analogue rev-counter says I’m travelling at 65mph. A handful of exploratory skids round the long left-hander known as Bank reveals nothing about the gearbox but does feel like quite hard work. It will go sideways easily enough, but trying to maintain the slide is a bit like playing pat-a-cake with an
octopus as the all-wheel-drive system shuffles the torque fore and aft. It seems to want to stop the slide rather than stabilise it as in previous 4Ss. Odd.
Back to the pits, into the manual 911, and as soon as you place a foot on the live throttle to pull slowly away you feel a greater sense of connection than in the PDK. With the right-hand pedal solely responsible for revs, it just feels more alert. I think there is inevitably a greater sense of awareness from the driver, too, as engaging the clutch requires a little extra layer of thought.
A few laps, a few slides (much more easily stabilised and sustained; much more enjoyable) and then a full run through second gear. All the way up to an indicated 78mph. That’s tall enough to be first pick in the NBA draft.
In the BMWS it’s a similar story, the DCT matching the PDK with 65mph in second and the manual topping out at 73mph. Curiously, though, the 5mph-lower limit of the BMW does seem to make an appreciable difference in making it feel less longlegged than the Porsche.
Nonetheless, arguably it renders gears three to six/seven in both manuals somewhat redundant on a B-road blast. Perhaps third isn’t totally redundant because the six-cylinder engines are both turbocharged and have maximum torque from 2300rpm and 2350rpm respectively, so you don’t feel totally cheated by short-shifting. Also the Porsche’s flat-six makes its maximum power at 6500rpm, some 1000rpm below the red line, while the BMW’S 444bhp is achieved at 6250rpm, which is 1350rpm before its rev-limiter kicks in. In short, it’s not quite as much of a problem as it is in a Cayman GTS 4.0, which you really want to rev out every time, but the paddleshift cars can certainly claim an initial advantage.
One of the other things that definitely sits in the PDK’S favour is that you really do get a motorsport feel from it. The paddles in a race car would probably be carbonfibre and feel lighter than the metal ones in the 992, but the weighting and zero-slack precision of the action would be right at home in a competition car. Short of throw, no nonsense, almost perfunctory in their performance. A Ferrari’s paddles have more theatre and flair about them, but the efficiency of the Porsche’s is more motorsport.
The way the ratios swap is equally efficient. They are stunningly swift and smooth. A GT3’S ’box may be even faster than a Carrera’s but in isolation you certainly don’t rue the wasted milliseconds. What’s more, there is a sense of complete correlation between paddle and change. There is no delay, no pause for thought, no filter for your fingertip request to go through. It is almost like the direct mechanical connection you get from pulling a sequential lever, even though you are merely activating a switch.
Add all this together and the result is that when you are braking as hard as you can into the hairpin and popping in a barrage of downchanges – bam, bam, bam – you can almost kid yourself that you’re in a race car. Likewise when you’re accelerating hard and pull a perfect, limiter-skimming upshift, there is a sense that it wouldn’t feel that different in an RSR.
By contrast, the manual always feels like a road car gearbox. It doesn’t have the tightness or mechanical directness that you would get in a race car with an H-pattern.