Am I the only one who struggles to get over the "great car, but it's an auto" hump?

LanEvo wrote: I live in Manhattan where parking costs $400 per month, so I can't really justify having more than one car. My wife spent most of her life in European cities where no one drives, so she's new to cars and isn't comfortable with a manual transmission in city traffic. So, I bought a 4-door, automatic 335xi as "the family car." (I do have a couple of project cars at a friend's shop in NJ, but hardly get to drive them). I expected to hate the car. A BMW is supposed to be RWD and manual, right? But I have to say, commuting in dense traffic is pretty nice with the auto. Shifts are quick enough. Seems to work well with the biturbo engine: pretty seamless power delivery. I took it to the track one time, and it was kind of awful (between AWD and auto, it just didn't want to rotate)...but that's not really the point of the car anyway. As a daily driver, I'm surprised to say I like it. And I don't think a manual would make it any better for what it is.

Is the Cossie sold? Cause you have a build thread to update that some people like to read...

I special ordered both my Scion xB and my MINI Cooper S with manual transmissions because I think in a small car manual offers better real world fuel economy despite what the EPA might think. I would have done the same for the Mirage, except a relatively local dealer had what I wanted on the lot. The way I drive, and where I live, favors manual transmissions.

The wife gets automatics, and that is getting tougher since neither of us likes CVTs. She loved her oil burning Forester but replaced it with a Rav4 to have gears in the transmission. I'm not sure what she will be able to get next time.

MattW wrote: Is the Cossie sold? Cause you have a build thread to update that some people like to read...

Still got it. Wrapping up the carb conversion.