Manual vs Automatic
#61
Le Mans Master
I spent an early part of my life driving from coast to coast in a big truck. After 10 years and a million miles I've changed enough gears to last forever. I quit that nonsense in 1981. Since then, it was 10 years of Chevy dealers as a tech, and the last 30 years have been big airplanes. That said, there are some things that must have both a manual trans and be RED..(edit-- current Harley is not real red, but close enough. I got a good enough deal on it to make up the difference)
Last edited by TimAT; 08-04-2018 at 12:02 AM.
#62
Le Mans Master
In the early 80's the Corvette had morphed into a Grand Touring sports car. They were no longer fire breathers and many comfort/convenience options became standard equipment. As the product and demographics changed, the stick shift became less important. Automatics were by far more common. The sticks were rare back them and even rarer today.
#63
Le Mans Master
In the early 80's the Corvette had morphed into a Grand Touring sports car. They were no longer fire breathers and many comfort/convenience options became standard equipment. As the product and demographics changed, the stick shift became less important. Automatics were by far more common. The sticks were rare back them and even rarer today.
You say that many comfort/convenience options became standard equipment like it's a bad thing. Those are the most sought after early options, all standard in the 80 (tilt-tele, AC, PW, PS, etc), plus the seats are more comfortable. The L82 dual snorkel cold air intake is standard in the 80 on both engines. The cars are lighter, with more, colder air going to the radiator, better aerodynamics, and finally a bumper that doesn't look like an afterthought for the first time since 1973. The only weak point is the Dana differential behind the aluminum batwing, but it is lighter if you keep it together.
Grand touring in stock form? Maybe, but the bones are there to turn it into whatever you want it to be. And without the guilt of modding a chrome bumper car. The manual transmission is the best part, by far, so I'm at a loss to understand why they are so uncommon. I'm sure it didn't help that GM couldn't get a manual L82 to pass emissions, so none were made. They were still playing these stupid games 25 years later with the 1-4 skip shift on some 6-speed cars, but I digress.
#65
Le Mans Master
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In the early 80's the Corvette had morphed into a Grand Touring sports car. They were no longer fire breathers and many comfort/convenience options became standard equipment. As the product and demographics changed, the stick shift became less important. Automatics were by far more common. The sticks were rare back them and even rarer today.
Not according to CorvetteMikeB. If I remember correctly about 10% of late C3s had manual transmissions. That means the manual is more than twice as popular in new Corvettes as it was back then.
"Last week, the National Corvette Museum published a detailed breakdown of 2016-model-year Corvette production, and it revealed that only 9249 of the 40,689 built came with manual transmissions. That works out to be a little under 23 percent of production."
#69
Safety Car
YMMV
#72
Le Mans Master
Pulling data from vettefacts.com, I got these numbers (I had to total coupes and convertibles, base and pacecars, and for the most part take their word for auto production).
Year Prod Auto Manual Percent
1974 37502 25146 12356 33%
1975 38465 28473 9992 26%
1976 46558 36625 9933 21%
1977 49213 41231 7982 16%
1978 46776 38614 8162 17%
1979 53807 41454 12353 23%
1980 40614 34838 5726 14%
1981 40606 35031 5575 14%
1982 25407 25407 0 0%
EDIT:
Just the percentages, since the formatting looks terrible:
Year Percent
1974 33%
1975 26%
1976 21%
1977 16%
1978 17%
1979 23%
1980 14%
1981 14%
1982 0%
Last edited by Bikespace; 08-04-2018 at 10:58 PM.
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Priya (08-04-2018)
#73
Instructor
It's low because those numbers are wrong. At best, they reflect the numbers of Close Ratio manuals as a percentage of total production. In 1980 and 1981, there was only a single manual option (on the L48 only), so those numbers were correct. 1979 was the outlier, if anything, but there were more Corvettes made that year than any other.
Pulling data from vettefacts.com, I got these numbers (I had to total coupes and convertibles, base and pacecars, and for the most part take their word for auto production).
Year Prod Auto Manual Percent
1974 37502 25146 12356 33%
1975 38465 28473 9992 26%
1976 46558 36625 9933 21%
1977 49213 41231 7982 16%
1978 46776 38614 8162 17%
1979 53807 41454 12353 23%
1980 40614 34838 5726 14%
1981 40606 35031 5575 14%
1982 25407 25407 0 0%
EDIT:
Just the percentages, since the formatting looks terrible:
Year Percent
1974 33%
1975 26%
1976 21%
1977 16%
1978 17%
1979 23%
1980 14%
1981 14%
1982 0%
Pulling data from vettefacts.com, I got these numbers (I had to total coupes and convertibles, base and pacecars, and for the most part take their word for auto production).
Year Prod Auto Manual Percent
1974 37502 25146 12356 33%
1975 38465 28473 9992 26%
1976 46558 36625 9933 21%
1977 49213 41231 7982 16%
1978 46776 38614 8162 17%
1979 53807 41454 12353 23%
1980 40614 34838 5726 14%
1981 40606 35031 5575 14%
1982 25407 25407 0 0%
EDIT:
Just the percentages, since the formatting looks terrible:
Year Percent
1974 33%
1975 26%
1976 21%
1977 16%
1978 17%
1979 23%
1980 14%
1981 14%
1982 0%
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Bikespace (08-04-2018)
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argus (04-15-2020)
#76
Race Director
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jr73 (08-27-2018)