"I are an engineer (of sorts). All my vehicles have had stick shifts
since about 1970. In the past, it was because stick shifts got better
gas mileage, and were cheaper. I even converted one old vehicle from
automatic to manual (because the junk yard wanted less for the manual
than a rebuild would have cost me for the automatic). Today, it's
purely psychological and maybe a little macho. "

For better or worse you have discarded a few facts. We are a car family, or were until people started dying off. There is one automatic transmission that will outperform a stick in a certain weight class - the THM400.

They do funny things with the torque convertor that makes it take off from the hole at about 5:1. You simply can't put a gearset in a stick that big. I think a bunch of high end luxury cars still use the THM400, rolls maybe or whatever ?

When you put a bigger gearset into a stick it is more prone to failure, which is quite catastophic I mean really don't even try to rebuild it. The valve body in the THM400 is a veritable analog computer running on hydraulics and it really does know better when to shift than you do. The beauty of the THM400 is that the gearset only gets it down to (IIRC) 2.73:1, the torque convertor takes up the rest. Then it smoothly settles to the 2.73:1 and soon thereafter shifts into second. Note that it does not shift out of first, first is still engaged but on a one way clutch. that makes for a smoother shift and actually if you have to tromp on it a smoother downshift as well.

When theey went to front wheel drive trannies got to be a pain. No more onee way clutch in most of them which means if the cable is not set right you get a big clunk as you coast down to a red light. If you are concerned with mileage you know exactly why I mean, you could never feel the old trannies shift like that.

What's worse, if some stupid little solennoid ggoes bad in these new electronically controlled trannnies it throws a code, even though it is only maybe passing gear or whatever, and then you can't get plates. And for some reason, unless he was lied to bigtime, I know someone who had a Ford with a Triton V8 that when three solenoids went bad in the tranny it mimiced the symptoms of jumped cam timing. I still think he was lied to but why would his mechanic go and have some valves replaced in the interference engine and do the timing irons instead of just replacing three solenoids ?

And now cars run Windows ? They gotta be kidding.

I want a 1967 Chevy. I liked my 1970 Toronado, but really it was trouble waiting to happen. First of all it was too fast. It could be beat but not in traffic. Plus every part cost a fortune, even the muffler was $300. (evacuator system) Too much, I need to get from point A to point B, and just as important back to point A. That means I do not need ridiculously priced parts on the car that have to be ordered from bum****t Sweden somewhere.

Hell, give me a model T and a propane heater.