[GT40FIED]

What's the point of an automatic? Consistency, power handling, torque multiplication, ease of use, etc. Do you have any idea how much money I'd have to throw into a manual transmission to handle my my car's power level? Then I'd have to dump a shitload into a hardcore clutch and pray it held on. And as has already been pointed out, it's hard to mess up shifting an automatic...put it in drive and let the valve body and/or computer do the rest. If you're racing and you miss a gear it's over for you unless the cars are horribly mismatched as far as power goes. Manuals are great for medium power cars in the 350-450hp range (even then you need upgrades) especially if you wanna go SOLO, SOLO II, SCCA, etc. racing because you can choose your gears but with a manual valve body an automatic can do the same thing and handle more power. If you want a big power manual, expect to pay between $3K-$5K for a Jerico or the like and then you'll have noisy straight cut gears and dog gears which means you'll have to learn to double clutch on every shift (something that's entirely pointless with a stock synchro equipped transmission). As for exhaust note...I haven't the slightest clue what you mean by an automatic sounding different than a manual car. The only difference would be most people rev manuals higher than automatics before shifting...but that's a driver thing. Even then, if you stand on the loud pedal hard enough a good automatic will rev almost until redline. It's all about preference but if you still insist automatics are inferior then we'll line up see whose car is faster...my automatic or your manual.