“Where did all the manuals go?” asks Jethro Bovingdon as he drags his poor, withered left leg behind him. Because the rise of the EV and the proliferation of the auto has seen manuals all but disappear from UK shores. America, on the other hand, is positively rolling in them. Weird. So we grabbed two of the most-exciting manuals on sale in the US that we don’t get back in Blighty, and set about proving once and for all that manual beats auto. To do this we required several things: Jack in a competitive car with an auto-box (OK, we might have fiddled this bit), an empty race track, and some skids. Lots of skids. Subscribe to Top Gear for more videos: WATCH MORE TOP GEAR: First Looks: First Drives: American Tuned ft. Rob Dahm: LISTEN to the Top Gear Magazine Podcast: Sign up for our newsletter: #TG2CarsAndStripes Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:24 Manual vs Auto 02:29 Drag Race 04:04 Auto Hot Lap 05:20 BMW M3 Hot Lap 06:37 Cadillac Hot Lap 08:48 Auto Drifting 11:36 BMW M3 Drifting 13:48 Cadillac Drifting 16:28 Conclusion MORE ABOUT TOP GEAR: Welcome to the official home of Top Gear on YouTube. Here you'll find all the best clips from your favourite episodes, whether that’s Ken Block drifting London in the Hoonicorn, Chris Harris in the latest Porsche 911 GT3 or classic Top Gear clips from Clarkson, Hammond and May. You'll also find the latest performance car reviews from the crew, our brand new series American Tuned with Rob Dahm and the fastest power laps from our in house performance benchmark: The Stig. This is a commercial channel from BBC Studios. Service & Feedback
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