[Francishroy]

I love driving stick and they are getting harder to find, it's on of the things I dislike about my 08 Laramie

 

[CJnOC]

Grew up with sports cars. Loved bringing the rev's up when downshifting and even did some racing. Having that said, with a high-torque motor and 8-speeds, it would be kinda like driving a semi-truck.
This past weekend I was driving in some hills, and after going up & down and some climbing, the tranny automatically selected the best gear to keep the rev's up for power and didn't upshift. Even when the road leveled out, it still held the present gear for about a minute and then realized the hills were no longer, and then proceeded to go into economy mode and selected the highest gear... Very Impressive!
Also having a shifter would greatly limit the middle space around the center stack and/or tranny hump (one of the advantages of the dial gear selector). Regardless if you chose the middle seat option or the center console option, the functionality and ergonomics, I think, would be greatly impacted in a negative way, but wouldn't surprise me if RAM has it in the 2500 or as a commercial option of some kind.

 

[zoomie]

I grew up with manual transmissions and had them in all my cars. My latest car has a six speed double clutch automatic that I couldn't possibly do any better at shifting. I changes gears in milli seconds. The eight speed in the truck would be just too many gears to crank through in my opinion. We get the economy by adding the gears but unfortunately we need to give up control to the computer.

I'm coming to the conclusion that I need a little toy with a manual. An old jeep, or an MGB or something like that.

 

[Francishroy]

I also wish the ED would have a manual tranny, fun to drive, great for slowing down.... and using the bottom end torque that you just can't tap into with the automatics.