gear stick or sequential gear flipper things.

[alan_driver]

Did anyone watch top gear yesterday? well they had the aston martin, very nice, but it has some flipper type gear shifters on the steering wheel. has anyone used these? are thay as bad as clarkson says? do you think TVR will ever bring this techology into their cars? i hope they keep the traditional gear stick? what would all you people prefer?

[Pinkney]

TVR are introducing a sequential gearbox to the T400R/T440R and eventually as an option on other models. However it's not the paddle shift type but a gear stick version, similar to the ones used in the BTCC and some rally cars. Basically you bang the gear stick towards you to move up a gear and away from you to drop down a gear. Apparently you don't have to use the clutch going up but going down you do. According to Autocar it is to be the first 'proper' roadgoing sequential box.

p.s. They had a prototype box at the motorshow that you could test out.

>> Edited by Pinkney on Monday 11th November 21:08

[VYT]

I test drove an BMW M3 with the paddle shift. It was pretty good when the engine was pulling hard but awful in traffic.

[fish]

like the TVR sequential box, tried it at the motor show. SHould be good, its also very small.

[p7ulg]

Shift paddles work well on F1 cars and playstations but I have yet to hear anyone give a good report of them on cars.I think alot of it is novelty factor and to let people pretend they are driving a Grand Prix car.There is much more satisfaction in changing gear manually.I know I sound as if I am a luddite but is there really a need to change gear in milliseconds.If you take away driver input your are surely reducing the pleasure of driving.Lets face it would you want to drive an automatic TVR!

[350matt]

Quote:
'but is there really a need to change gear in milliseconds'
Yes as a fast gearshift can considerably reduce acceleration / lap times and reducing the amount of time the clutch is depressed loss of drive etc can balance a car better.
Technology is a good thing and eventually all gearboxes will be like this, just give them a bit of time to sort it all out.

Matt

[p7ulg]

Technology has also given us traction control, abs, airbags but TVR manage to survive without them.

As for reduction of acceleration/lap times great if you are going to drive the car on track but a bit pointless for a road car which is pretty quick to begin with.