DSG Auto Manual Trans

Amongst MINI owners, why is the new Golf GTI that should be hitting the street very soon getting a lot os attention? Could it be its killer good looks?... its smile factor?...its overall charm?... or perhaps its world class handling?... No, don't be silly. All of these things are hands down automatically awarded to the MINI. So why is the new GTI possibly a worthy adversary to the MINI? Well, I can tell you what grabbed my attention being a MCSa owner, the available auto manual transmission.It seems to be our nature as MINI owners to tweak and fiddle with things to improve them or make them more interesting. What would make my MINI more enjoyable would be something like the DSG. The Volkswagen Direct Shift Gearbox puts an additional £1,260 ($2,200) on the price but that's not too much different that the extra $1350 I paid for the auto in the MCS.Although I am satisfied with the performance of the automatic transmission in my MINI, there is always room for improvement. Its very exciting to hear something like this will be widely available in a car that is comparable to a MINI. I am also hopeful for improvements on gas milage as the current auto tranny is a bit inefficient. Without the actual torque converter, perhaps similar figures can be achieved as with the MCS manual transmission.

In other news, they are still working on making the MCSa JCW available for the US market. More on that here from Motoringfile

Here's a Review of the MKV Golf GTI (w/DSG) from Motoringfile