I drive my brother's F430 F1 a lot and the system works really well. And the Scuderia has even faster shifts. That said, paddle shifting removes too much driver involvement - give me a stick and clutch please.

DSG/PDK is a twin-clutch system that provides seamless shifts, but the price is extra weight. I've driven a Golf GTI and I liked the DSG.

Ferrari is talking about using a small electric motor in their road cars to momentarily power the car for the few tens of milliseconds it takes to shift their paddle gearboxes. This would make an up-shift feel seamless even though it took say 50 ms or so.

Nordschleife, that ZeroShift looks interesting, but I suspect it's a long way off before it appears as the de-facto standard. For the forseeable future I believe we will see more F1 and DSG systems. And sadly, the good ol' stick will fade away together with us true enthusiasts.

 

I think we enthusiasts make too big a deal out of the evolution to some sort of paddle shift technology. I'm a downhill skier and I resisted the move to shaped skis for about five years because I was some kind of macho purist or something. Then I tried my friend's shaped skis and wanted to kick myself for missing five years of better skiing. I like rowing my own gears a whole bunch, but I suspect that we'll all eventually like whatever gets us around the track the fastest when all is said and done.

 

I should clarify - I think paddles rule on the track. Keeping hands on the wheel, concentrating on driving, and shaving tenths off lap times is critical on the track. But on the street, where I do most of my sports car driving, I love the involvement and fine control I get from a stickshift. I spend time with both stick and paddles, and I'm quite certain I prefer stick on the street. Are your Ferrari and Lambo paddles or stick?

Couldn't agree more about shaped skis, BTW. But it's not quite the same comparison as stick vs paddles. There's very little lost going to shaped skis.

 

I'll give you the difference of the shaped skis argument. The Lamborghini is paddle (and not a great system at that), the F430 is stick, but I'm actually looking for an F1 because owning a modern Ferrari with a stick seems like going to a steak place and ordering chicken. Those cars are truly about the technology.

I don't disagree with your point, I like shifting myself too, especially on the street, but I think there's plenty of fun to be had coming down quickly through the gears with the left paddle too. Maybe I'm just trying to convince myself since the stick is so obviously on death row.

 

Hey Sixspeed, did you just pick up that all black RS in Houston? Very nice!

 

Joe, yes I did. It was in Missouri (same ownership as Houston). I just got it yesterday and it looks great in person. I have to get some pictures and post them. Missing the ceramics, but it's such a unique car that I got over it.

 

Congrats! That car is a beauty.

 

That's the part that upsets me. Even though Porsche will continue to offer stick (not so Ferrari anymore, I think), they will be headed the way of the dinosaurs as soon as PDK emerges. Stick will get hard to find and harder to sell, and soon will fall off the tree of evolution, just like me.

 

Joe, yes I did. It was in Missouri (same ownership as Houston). I just got it yesterday and it looks great in person. I have to get some pictures and post them. Missing the ceramics, but it's such a unique car that I got over it.

 

Ferrari 599 GTB F1 SuperFast system is amazing. state of the art, and i think it increases driver involvement. driving is about driving. not sure why everyone thinks its about shifting! shifting is something we have to do, not something we want to do!!!

 

I have paddles on my DB9 , and it is not nearly as much fun as my 6-speed GT3

 

I just yesterday picked up a new XKR Portfolio and it's newest automatic transmission is pretty staggering. The most intuitive auto box so far, and if one uses the paddles they grab the gears with amazing accuracy and speed. I am not saying this type of tranny is suitable for high reving GT3 type cars, but for anything in the line of a GT it now seems unmatchable. The paddle shift in BMW's, Ferrari's and the Lambo's are all fairly horrific in my opinion, and for the purposes of down shifting into corners, I find them downright de-stabilizing to the car. My point is, I am pretty sure a viable alternative to the stick shift for sports cars is coming (just as the auto box has evolved into a pretty sophisticated transmission), but nothing out there that I have driven so far seems to be without major flaws and compromise. If I make an error shifting with a stick that's one thing (it just makes you feel negatively about your driving skills and you can at least try to forgive yourself), but when the car's transmission starts doing dumb things, I for one very quickly grow to despise the car.

 

The guys must have sent you out with the wrong program. I have not had that problem. There are two programs I like - manual (where I make all the decisions) and automatic (where I dont care what happens).

BTW, you cannot translate European experience to US experience, the gearboxes are programmed differently.

R+C

 

Unfortunately, GM, PAG, VAG and a host of others have poured Grand Canyon sized bundles of moolah into this double clutch technology. Heads will roll and careers destroyed if they admit that its a dead loss. But its a design that offends purist design principles, at any given moment, half of it is redundent, useless and contributing to mechanical inefficiencies. The benefits are enormously overhyped and often illusory.

ZeroShift is not a large company, they started off developing the technology for street cars, the got diverted by F1, with its big budgets.

For now, I am happy with a good Xtrac box and the choice of manual or flappies. Unfortunately its hard to wean the Italians away from Cima and Graziano.

Incidentally, if double clutch was such a good idea, and if the racing experience was so 'successful', I wonder why Audi and Team Joest went away from it for the R8 and R10? Well, I don't actually wonder, but I would like a few of the advocates of Double Clutch technology think about it.

R+C

 

Its a slush box - not the same thing at all

R+C