Originally Posted by Caliper

Laugh all you want, but drive an auto and a stick car back to back and the stick car is just plain more enjoyable. I've personally swapped two different cars from auto to stick and in both cases the car was 100% better after. Having driven a stick daily for about ten years now, I'll take manual over automatic in everything but an LA style dead stop bumper to bumper jam and in that case it's really just a toss up. It's not about a few mpg (although a lot of that is gear ratio selection) or that a computer can do many things better than I. It's the fact that driving an automatic is mundane and boring even in some pretty hot cars while a stick puts a smile on my face even in what would othwrwise be a mundane car.