Fuel Mileage - Automatic vs. Manual

My buddy just spent 25,000CAD at the local dealership. No gold involved, only an I-sift

 

I would show up just for the trip down memory lane. '62 KW cabover, 280 cummins, 5x4, and get this, "center point steering". No AC, Basically no windshield defroster. How many remember "shutters" in front of their radiator? Air ride suspension was only in the dreamers eyes that wrote the brochures for new trucks.

AMTs or whatever you want to call'm, are what's new. Just like power steering. Just like AC. Just like air ride suspension and a cab quiet enough to hear the stereo was when they hit the market in mass.

How many of you anti-AMT people want to go back to no power steering, no AC, or run spring suspension? Anyone? Every one of those options and more had their own difficulties at first. Back in those days, when the AC compressor clicked on, you had to drop a gear when pulling a hill. How bout anti-lock brakes? Any one want to drive in today's traffic without it?

Manual trans drivers are a dying breed, and as such leave behind a dying market. They're your kids (bastar-ds that they may be) that are leaving the manuals lay in the bone yards. They're the same kids that you better hope use modern technology to take care of you when you're dying of lung cancer from following that 1693 with garden hose injectors.

 

You made quite some effort in your rant to get your point. I do not question the future of the ATM. Maybe even the present already. What I am saying, I would be happy to buy a pre-emission truck in 2014 and indeed it would save lot of headache and money for me. I just hope in a couple years when I will spec my new truck, the manual still will be an option. And after slowly I will extinct with my manual transmission.
I realize the trucks and the business model is changing. They build the trucks what should be thrown away in 7-9 years and I am too old to switch. I buy new and keep for 15 years. In my model manual make more sense. Beside I hate to drive the ATM.