The Blue Rascal, thankfully, has that increasingly-rare feature … a manually-shifted gearbox. If the current trend continues, eoncoboxes will be the only new cars so equipped (and maybe even those will give way to CVTs). The use of the traditional manual transmission even in sports and performance cars is rapidly fading away. Why? Take a look at this Fifth Gear (the other Brit TV motoring series) video, comparing a manual Cayman with a DSG counterpart:
Read more commentary at Business Insider.