Question of the Week: What’s the Most Satisfying Transmission?—WINNER’S UPDATE: A Practical Look
WINNER’S ANNOUNCEMENT:
We’re back to announce the winner for our Question of the Week, where our victor will accept a $25 credit for a hat or T-shirt from the BaT Gear Store and the acclaim of their peers.
Our question this week was: What’s the most satisfying transmission?
We fired up our laptops, dropped them into gear, and went straight to work tallying up your nominations. Manual gearboxes dominated the thread, and the six-speed manual transmission found in the Honda S2000 earned the most mentions. BaT user @paulkstadden was the first to nominate it, making him this week’s winner!
“Honda S2000. I got to drive one and realized it has less play in neutral than my CTS-V has in gear.”
Honda engineers designed the S2K’s six-speed with performance in mind, and the end result was a close-ratio unit that rewarded you with short, precise throws and buttery-smooth feel. Great pick and congratulations, paulkstadden! Be sure to check your email to claim the prize.
There were many other notable nominations from this week’s discussion thread, including the five-speed gearbox from the NA Miata and the M-22 Muncie—both of which were tied for second place.
“1994 Mazda Miata R with a 5 speed.
Miata
Is
Always
The
Answer”
“Any late 60s/early 70s GM product with the M-22 transmission”
“The Ferrari Gated Manual, of course.”
Gated shifters were once a staple for Ferrari, dating as far back as the early 1950s.
“Any Getrag manual gearbox. 55-years, 20 BMWs, (thousands) of miles, and never one transmission failure. 👍🏻”
BMW’s alliance with Getrag began in the 1970s, and a number of Getrag-equipped Bimmers were mentioned in the comment section.
“The 727 TorqueFlite is a legendary transmission. It’s built to handle the brute power of HEMIs and big-blocks with minimal fuss. It’s one of the most bulletproof racing transmissions available.”
A few automatics made the noms own this week, including the venerable 727 TorqueFlite.
“As a 7 year-old, the pushbutton transmission of a 1964 Plymouth Barracuda was downright fascinating…
As an adult, the gated ZF in my Pantera is a visual and tactile delight.”
“’81 Dodge Colt “Twin Stick” — a 4spd manual tied to a dual-range transfer case [“E” (Economy) or “P” (Power)], both shifters protruding from the console. Gave the 1.6L 4cyl a total of 8 forward speeds, 2 reverse — big rig sound impressions a must!”
Two speeds in reverse sound like fun!
What makes a transmission satisfying tends to be different for everyone, and for @Corvette_hotrod, it meant living to tell about it:
That’s it for this week’s Question of the Week! Thanks to everyone who participated and congratulations to our winner, paulkstadden. We’ll be back with a new question soon.
ORIGINAL POST:
Welcome to the BaT Question of the Week! For those unfamiliar, here are the rules: we ask an automotive-themed question, and the author of our favorite answer from the comments is awarded a $25 credit to the BaT Gear Store.
This week’s question is: what’s the most satisfying transmission?
One of the best things about driving a car is the tactile sensation of gears shifting beneath you, whether its the buttery snick-snick of a BMW or Honda, the clink of a gated Italian shifter, or the bang of a Toploader or Rock-Crusher.
We won’t discount automatics or automated manuals either. It can be equally satisfying to feel the smooth push of power that comes on with an upshifting slushbox, or the lightning-fast blip of a PDK. In the end, it’s all subjective. Whether you’re a three-pedal loyalist or let the gearbox make its own decisions, we want to know:
What’s the most satisfying transmission?
Tell us all about it in the comments, and give a thumbs-up to any stories that grab your attention. We’ll announce the winner on Monday.
The Most Satisfying Transmission? It’s the one that tries to kill you. My choice for the most satisfying transmission is the glorious, rage-inducing three-on-the-tree in my 1962 Ford van—the one with the non-synchronized first gear.
It wasn’t a transmission; it was a character-building exercise in automotive masochism. You see, getting it into first meant a complete, carefully orchestrated stop, lest the gear teeth protest with the sound of a thousand angry wasps in a blender.
The true comedy began when you were gently rolling toward a red light that inevitably turned green 50 feet too early. This triggered a split-second existential crisis: Do I lug it out in second gear and listen to the engine gasp like a dying whale, or do I slam the brakes and risk an imminent rear-end collision just so I can jam it into first? Every green light was a high-stakes, low-speed game of Chicken.
To elevate this rolling circus, the original shift lever had snapped off, replaced by a pair of trusty Vise Grips—a perfect symbol of its “fix-it-with-whatever-is-nearby” engineering. But the real showstopper? The linkage loved to lock up. At least once a week, I’d be stuck in neutral at a busy intersection, staring at the growing line of furious drivers. The only cure was to climb under the van in traffic, grab the slack, greasy linkage, and violently shake it until the gears decided to speak to each other again.
I paid $200 for that bucket of mechanical mayhem. And that’s why it’s the most satisfying: because surviving a trip with it was the true prize. It wasn’t driving; it was negotiating a hostage situation with a transmission.