^^ And by CTV, you mean CVT? Interesting benefits, but it's a weird feeling as the cars don't 'shift' and the tiptronic replication doesn't make much sense.

 

Five closely-stacked gears with a high 6th gear for the highway is perfect. My old Evo would have been perfect but it was missing that tall 6th gear. The PDK in my 911 is a pretty good compromise - gears 1-6 are tight with 7 way up there. I got 25 mpg on a 3500-mile road trip because of it. I'm just bored with auto/semi-auto/dual-clutch/flappy gearboxes. All manuals for me here on out - and hopefully all with 6 speeds as above.

 

^^^You getting bored with PDK, Chris?

 

6 speed manual is king. It gives you everything you need depending on the ratios. I have a 3 speed auto in my supra and it is tough to drive on the street but that was chosen because the car is used for drag racing. I have a 6 speed supra and it is used for daily use. I do not mind 5 speed manual boxes, just prefer 6. Big problem with CVT is them handling power. To my knowledge no one has come out with one to handle more than 350hp.

 

It's all about the horsepower curve (and therefore the torque curve). For max performance, you need gear ratios that keep the car in its powerband at any speed. In the M5, for example, once you get past 100mph (4th-7th gears), you're basically never getting less than about 450 HP. That's the main reason its top end is so impressive.

By contrast, if you have a big torquey V8 that runs out of puff at 5,000 rpm, you get pretty much the same horsepower from (let's say) 3,000 rpm to 6,000 rpm. In that case, you can have fewer, more widely spaced, gears.

With the sort of power to weight ratio available in contemporary sports cars, the first few gears can be pretty well-spaced, as traction is the issue until you get up to highway speeds (and in some cases, beyond). So, you can have gears 1-2-3 relatively far apart, then 4-5-6-7 closer together for high-speed performance. With ~200mph top speeds, cruising at 60mph in top gear, even if you don't designate it a 'fuel-economy' gear, keeps you in the lower 1/3 of your rev range anyway.

So, if the trend goes to smaller displacement/lower torque/higher rpm for NA engines, 7-8 gear DSG gearboxes will probably become the norm. If we go to torquey low-rpm turbo engines, I don't really see a need to go past 6 gears.

 

Sounds like it. I think for those who have and can drive a M/T w/o any issues, we ultimately prefer it. PDK is great; but it's NO m/t.


I know m/t and you sir, are NO m/t!

 

This is the future of transmissions.

 

Sounds absolutely B O R I N G!

 

i get 28mpg on the s2000 (mainly highways) but it has short gears, all 6 of them.....
when i'm going 80mph on 6th it's at about 4000rpms.
but thinking how narrow the powerband is on the s2000
(about 5800 to 8100 on AP2) the short gearing makes sense.

that was a bit out of topic, but yes I voted D. i don't need more than 5,6 gears on automatic if i were to get one.

 

I agree with much of what has been said here, and 7-speed transmissions such as PDK, SMG, etc. have shown that they are vital in making speed most efficiently. It helps to have a tall overdrive for better fuel economy. In an automatic, I say go for as many ratios as tech allows because most drivers aren't too concerned with revving gears. The only car that I think has too many ratios is the IS-F. It needs a 7-sp DCT or 6-sp manual.