My feeling on this as you can tell from my sig, is that this is not a luxury car. A luxury car has at least four seats and lots of cushy room. This is a purposely built sports car, not unlike a Porsche or BMW Z3/4. If you had any of these cars with an automatic you are doing yourself a serious injustice and missing out on the pleasure of rowing this smooth tranny through it's six finely spaced cogs. Everytime I get on a highway ramp or take off from a light I giggle like a schoolgirl at the shear joy of listening to this musical engine rev out and shift at my command. Sure it takes more concentration and attention to drive a stick, but thats not really a bad thing is it. Anyway, that's just my feeling.