BREAKING: Outdated Air-Cooled News: Porsche, VW, And Zündapp Lies

The Volkswagen Beetle genesis story is easily one of the most well-known and often-told in all of motoring. I've read about it countless times, and the details almost never change. Until now. I just encountered one of my first real contradictions in the story of the Beetle, and it's making me question everything.

http://jalopnik.com/breaking-outdated-air-cooled-news-porsche-vw-and-zun-1564504212

EXEA189 said:

The Volkswagen Beetle genesis story is easily one of the most well-known and often-told in all of motoring. I've read about it countless times, and the details almost never change. Until now. I just encountered one of my first real contradictions in the story of the Beetle, and it's making me question everything.

http://jalopnik.com/breaking-outdated-air-cooled-news-porsche-vw-and-zun-1564504212

Click to expand...

The story following yours about how BMW will be eliminating DCT's in favor of torque converter transmissions will probably also mean the end of DSG's in high performance VAG's.

In re the BMW story, that doesn't explain why manuals are so hard to come by in sub-400hp cars. Guess that's simply economics and lack of demand in that case. Probably too few buyers, too much hassle and expense to certify and test several configurations, and perhaps along with that, naturally, a declining base of people who know what they are doing with clutch, and hence, more warranty claims or whatnot for manuals. Service headaches and all that I suppose.

The whole thing is kind of icky though. The only time in the last 30 some odd years I took a two-year break from manuals to try an automatic I was bored to death.

I don't know how much automakers need to pay for EPA testing now but it used to be expensive and time consuming.

TheWombat said:

In re the BMW story, that doesn't explain why manuals are so hard to come by in sub-400hp cars. Guess that's simply economics and lack of demand in that case. Probably too few buyers, too much hassle and expense to certify and test several configurations, and perhaps along with that, naturally, a declining base of people who know what they are doing with clutch, and hence, more warranty claims or whatnot for manuals. Service headaches and all that I suppose.

The whole thing is kind of icky though. The only time in the last 30 some odd years I took a two-year break from manuals to try an automatic I was bored to death.

Click to expand...

I'd not care if ATs were just boring. Unfortunately ATs just don't do what I expect them to at a given moment, are less dependable and more pricey (I bet the automakers and shops like that part). Also, the whole better mpgs is such a load of BS.

The Fed said:

The story following yours about how BMW will be eliminating DCT's in favor of torque converter transmissions will probably also mean the end of DSG's in high performance VAG's.

Click to expand...

Apparently, the VP of sales and marketing for BMW’s M division says that both manual and dual clutch transmissions will die out. The imminent death of the manual transmission has been coming for years and shouldn’t surprise anyone, however Peter Quintus’ belief that DCTs are also on the way out might shock a few people.

Quintus said that the advantage of quicker shifts dual-clutch transmissions once had over traditional automatic gearboxes are dwindling.

“It's more a question of how long has the DCT got to go. How long will it last? We are now seeing automatic transmissions with nine and even 10 speeds, so there's a lot of technology in modern automatics.”

“The DCT once had two advantages: it was light and its shift speeds were higher. Now, a lot of that shift-time advantage has disappeared as automatics get better and smarter,” Quintus said.