>>81686022>it was never about speednah, manuals used to be faster until the late oughts when the ZF DCT started appearing in the VW GTI and various Porsches. I don't think there were performance versions of the ZF8 until its 3rd gen late last decade, and the 4th gen of the ZF8 is a lot better. torque converters used to be slow as shit to shift, heavy, wouldn't hang on to gears at high revs, and caused 10-30% hp loss depending on how far back you want to go, which translated into worse fuel economy in addition to worse performance. And a lot of automatics were unreliable and expensive as fuck to fix, while servicing a manual is easier, but these days it seems like a lot of manuals are more prone to eating shit and costing $$$ to fix than automatics are. anyway, it wasn't purely about engagement as it is now