We have been looking at cars recently. What I have found is that I have very particular taste in cars.

Lets take my opinion of roadsters for instance. I have test driven quite a few recently, and have been absolutely smitten by the Mercedes-Benz SLK. It is just the right blend of touring comfort, and “light” (it still weighs in at 3400lbs, which isn’t exactly trim) nimble fun. Just practical enough for me to drive every day, with the retractable hard top so I can go topless on those odd weekends it isn’t cold/raining.

It has this dual personality thing going on too. All the witchcraft going on with the traction control, stability control, and braking mugumbo makes it a very easy to drive car. Pretty comfortable too. The suspension isn’t crazy break your back firm, but doesn’t give you the impression that you are driving a plush marshmallow either. The intake and exhaust are calm and don’t make a fuss. With all the wizardry switched on, the car really reduces the amount of bandwidth you need to devote to driving. End of the day driving home from work, wanting nothing more then the car to get you to bed safe, and this is the default button to push.

Switch it all off though and the car turns into a different animal all together. The compression and rebound dampening stiffens up and lets you feel what the the road is doing. Not obnoxiously pounding all of your bones to powder. Just letting you know what the tires are up to underneath the car all the time. The steering assistance fades from loose and lazy one hand direction changes, to both hands on the wheel clawing up swaths of the pavement with sideways grip.

I am not going to comment on the automatic gear box, except that I am not a fan. This is no fault of the car though. I just really hate automatic transmissions in general. Before you say it; no, sport shifters make no difference to me at all. Put paddles on the column, make the shift gate into some maze of mystery, make me push the shifter into some secret handshake maneuver, I don’t care. If I romp down on the accelerator, I want an instant response from the motor. If I am in too tall of a gear it just means that the response isn’t as pressing in my back side, and is something that I should have thought further ahead about. If I have spent the past 6 years practicing heel toe shifting then I want the car to keep up just as well. With an auto box there is a hesitation that drives me up the god damn wall. I just want to scream at the car “stop thinking about it and GO! I Pushed your GO FAST button so GO already!” I miss turn apexes because when I press the accelerator nothing happens and I understeer into a wide line, then the motor wakes back up from its nap and suddenly I am oversteering like some loony in a supra pulling a fast and furtarded slide. Except I wasn’t expecting it and now instead of a nice and tidy turn that doesn’t make any fuss at all, I am hurtling sideways toward the outside of the turn in a less then graceful power slide that gets me a bazzillian dollar ticket and most likely an at fault wreck. I HATE auto transmissions.

Now I haven’t driven an auto with a dual clutch or another kind of automatic manual transmission like that. Just the gooy shitty torque converter crap. And just my luck, the SLK just happens to have this kind of auto in just about every single one ever sold forever. Yes even the new one. Actually I would say the new one is worse in some ways. It now has seven gears to screw up. It just happens to screw them up less.

All of this said, the manual 6 speed one I drove was brilliant. Clutch engagement was wonderful and the friction point was wide enough to make sitting on an incline stationary without using the brake a breeze. The shifter gate felt tight and precise. Really the only thing I can find fault with is the fact it had 6 gears, but not enough oomf to push the tallest one in normal highway driving around here. The supercharged one I drove needed to be wound up a bit before it made decent thrust, and it never really gets up there humming down the road at less the 85. A small incline at 70mph in sixth and you are reaching for the gear shifter. Maybe I am just not used to a 6 speed and would need to get used to it? Or perhaps it is better in the more muscular V6, problem of course being finding one of those is damn close to impossible with a stick shift.

So if I could have any car to enjoy driving day after day, I would take a SLK350 with a manual gear box. Put a coat of pearly white on it and just try to pry me out of it.