Get your hand off it

Estimable fellow in many respects the tall host of Brit Top Gear is, admittedly. Though he may never be able to hold his head up in public after what Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse did to him:

Indeed, when it comes to what he derides as “flappy paddles”, Clarkson’s more wrong than whoever decided that the FG Falcon was the car to rescue Ford Australia.

Steering wheel – or steering column – mounted gear shift selectors take many (sometimes ergonomically irksome) forms. The only logical configuration is where the left one is for downshifts, the right for up. In almost everything thus equipped, there is of course the option of simply leaving them alone, with gearstick in drive to do its automated thing.

That’s a bit lame, though, isn’t it? Whether the transmission’s a torque converter auto or a twin-clutch jobbie like DSG – or any one of the seemingly endless new variations thereof – why not deploy a bit of the old DIY? Seems pretty vacant not to use that left one in particular to, say, engine brake especially if your hands need never leave the wheel to do so.

This is the point at which the real-men-only-drive-crash-boxes-brigade grunt something along the lines of “If yer wanna change gears, why doncha buy a proper manual”.

Well, chaps, I own one and, perversely enough, I wouldn’t swap it. But I’m also aware that something in the region of 90 plus per cent of those other drivers you might happen to dimly perceive on the road would rather undergo unanesthetized root canal therapy than use a clutch pedal and a gearstick.

And as much as those whose sleep is fraught with fantasies about ripping ‘round Bathurst in the car numbered “05” might like to dream otherwise, the best flappy paddle set ups swap cogs quicker and slicker than we lumpen mortals can aspire. Not only do they engage gears about 1000 times faster they do so without emission spikes – a big deal for heavily regulated Euro carmakers these days and of increasingly consequence down this way. In the case of twin-clutch set-ups, they out sprint a conventional manual from 0-100km/h while using less juice in general running.

So when a reviewer lamented recently that driver involvement is being removed from the equation, well, of course it is. We’re not that good.

And anyone who imagines they can do better in their proper manual really does have their left hand on it.