Save The Manuals! BMW M3 vs Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing

Well, this is embarrassing, isn't it? While America single-handedly saves the manual gearbox, us Europeans are withering on the vine and dying. Left legs don't work. I can barely hold a cup of coffee up with my arms these days. And a case in point is this, BMW M3. In the UK, we only get this as an auto, but here you can get a six-speed manual. But even then, the European sensibility kicks in. This isn't a competition version, this is the basic car. They've tried to make it as undesirable as possible. It's almost like they're embarrassed to even offer it. Even worse, the Americans aren't embarrassed, they're proud. That was the CT5V Blackwing by Cadillac, 668 horsepower and a manual gearbox, and they celebrate it. Well, today I say no more. I'm going to prove that we can still drive manuals, and then unequivocally that the manual gearbox is superior to the auto. You just watch me. Boys, help me up. Someone! Save the manuals isn't the most sophisticated mantra in the world, and we know there are some truly great dual-clutch boxes out there. However, none of them can match the interaction and satisfaction you get from a H-pattern box. So today, we're going to examine why that's the case through the prism of two mighty cars, the BMW M3, albeit the poverty-spec car, and the ludicrously over-endowed Caddy CT5V Blackwing. Get ready for a good old-fashioned drag race, a lap-time shootout, and a gratuitous drift challenge. So, it's 6.2-litre supercharged V8 versus 3.0-litre twin-turbo straight-six, 668 horsepower versus 473. The Caddy costs $93,390 to the BMW's $79,595. So, it's not quite a fair fight, but this is more about proving a philosophy than picking a winner. We do need a loser, though, something similar to these super saloons, something with four doors, obviously, and an automatic gearbox. Um, Jethro, I do have an automatic gearbox, but this doesn't seem awfully fair. Well, do you have a clutch pedal? Negative. Do you have a gear lever that you have to stir around? Nope. Okay, so manual V auto, that's what we're doing here. Three, two, one, go. And across the line. Looked like a bit of a scalp for the Caddy there. This thing is so rapid. You have to tickle it off the line with, like, maybe 1,500, 1,800 revs, but then it's just an absolute rocket ship. It's got an onboard timer. I did 0-60 in 3.5 seconds, apparently. It felt bang on perfect. Yeah, I had a great view of that from 150 metres further back. Um, I'd like to say you have to tickle the Maverick off the line, but she just goes. But the advantage of an automatic or dual clutch is only enhanced when you throw corners into the mix. At least that's what we're led to believe. Let's find out on the simply fabulous Apex Motor Club track. What a playground this place is. Anyway, once again, it's Jack in the theoretically faster automatic. How does he always get the easy gig? Three, two, one, go. Oh, fantastic launch. Zero wheel spin. Zero wasted energy. Here we come. Oh, hello, understeer. Let's see if he catches any dirt, any dust. Take a lot of kerb. Come on, we got off-road tyres. Woo-hoo. Tight right hander. Little bit wide there. Come on, back on the throttle. Right, down the street. Actually, solve that chicane. Save me a bit of time. I have to say from the outside looking in, that was pretty impressive. Thank you. I have to say it was pretty impressive from where I was sitting too. Scores on the doors and the time to beat is two minutes, 19.09. And with zero to compare it to, that's pretty much a lap record for Top Gear. I'll take it. So we have our target. In Jethro's world, all the M3 and Blackwing need to do is beat the Maverick to claim a glorious victory for manual gearboxes. Me, I'm more intrigued to see if the Caddy can live with Europe's finest sports saloon. Three, two, one. Pretty much the same as the Maverick, Turn the ESC off and then just have a little bit of traction assist. It feels so light into the fast chicane. This is not a competition. So I do not have all the sexy stuff. The seats are awful. I've got steel brakes. Any driving challenge, he'll take very, very seriously. Pretend to the camera that we're having fun, but no, he wants to win. Such a lovely car to drive. That was pretty good. I think I needed another gear there. That's my first lap at speed around this track. So OK, Jack, what's the damage? It starts with a one, so you can rest easy. One minute, 52.52. So what's that? 27 seconds quicker. Is it really? That's hilarious. I love it. OK, Jeff, have you got your big boy pants on? I'm actually wearing your pants. I didn't want to tell you, but I ran out of clean ones. I also ran out of clean ones three days ago. So jokes on you. Are you ready? 152 to beat. Than the M3, much longer geared as well. It's hilarious, this guy. You can't miss a shift because everyone within a two mile radius can hear it. Push us all the way in, that's the only way to do it, and then let the engine go. Heavier car, better brakes, more power. Is it going to even itself out? Minute and a half. 152 to beat. So much weight and power. It's so hard to be smooth with it. Oh my word, I didn't think it'd be that quick. Not good. Wow, this thing's hard work. It's even hotter, I think. Right, you ready to hear your fate? Yeah, I can tell you what my thoughts are if you want. Let's do that. Yeah, I don't know if it's the heat's got to the engine or something. It doesn't feel as bombastic down the straight a little bit, and then definitely heavier in the corners, so I think it might be a bit slower. You're right, it did it in two minutes. No, I'm joking. Wow, that's pretty good. It was not by any means my best lap, but that's pretty cool to have such different cars come in so close. Yeah, wow, I'm impressed because it did not feel like a very clean experience. M3 is a better track car, I think it's fair to say. Okay, so this is the final challenge and probably my favourite. This is the drift challenge. So, if you have a look, you can see Jack over there. Jack's always in the Maverick, way off in the distance, and the idea is this corner here, he's not going to start sliding straight away. He's not going to start sliding at all, but the others two hopefully will. I'm going to start sliding mid this first left-hander. It tightens up, it's really wicked. Then it turns right, hard right, big drift through there, get that transition. There's then quite a long straight before a very fast chicane, which then leads into this long, long, long right-hander, up onto the kerb, up onto the dust for style points. It is a huge challenge in any car. On that note, let's see how Jack does in a Ford Maverick Tremor. Jack? Yes? You know the course, you know that thing intimately by now, as you haven't driven anything else today, so do your work. I can't help but feel I've been thrown under the bus here. Well, all I can say is, imagine if you did make this work, you'd be literally a hero, a god in fact, so yeah, go for it. All right, stand back. Stand back. The ambition is brilliant. Okay, chances of me getting this thing sideways? Less than none, I'd say. Here we come, first corner, tightening, turn in on the brakes. Oh, that's a lot of understeer. Oh, that's a whole heap of understeer. This is the problem with autos, you see. No clutch control. Can't kick it into life. All right, we'll get it right in the chicane, I reckon. Bit of angle here. I mean, I've just got no chance of getting it sideways on the tarmac. I tell you what, stick it on the gravel. That's how we do it. There's a little bit of angle there, I think. Little something. You did get a transition going, but it looked more like a crash than a deliberate thing. All good camera shots look like you're crashing. You learned that. That's at journalism school, day one. Without a manual gearbox, obviously, you struggled a little with the control in terms of you couldn't kick it into life. See, I couldn't clutch kick it. If I had the clutch kick, I reckon I would have linked that all up. So otherwise, you would have been all over it. So another demerit for the auto. Let's keep it going to manuals. Great car hampered by the box. Do you want to drive the M3? No, no, don't worry about that. I'll get the M3. No, I'd love to. I'll do the M3 and then the Caddy. Come back. Okay, I see you've left the Caddy till last. Probably a wise move. All right, first attempt. The first transition is easy in second, but I'm going to run out of steam. So I want to do it in third, but I think in third, it's going to make me look like a monkey because it's really tough to get it all right. Oh, my God. What the hell? Good man. Whoa, that wasn't bad at all. A little puff of dust for the cameras. I didn't quite do it. So you may not have seen, but in the middle there, I straightened up a little bit. So not perfect. A couple of points deducted from the judges. The problem is over here, I just hit the limiter in second on the way into that fast chicane. And if I try third, so this is the geeky bit. If I try third, I can slide it through here fine. I can do the transition, but then I bog. So I need second through the right-hander. And then second's good because I can then turn into the chicane and have it sideways, but it won't. I'm then on the limiter, so it won't hold that angle. A bit of dirt for good measure. So I think the Caddy has two advantages. One, second gear is longer. Two, it has 670 horsepower, which is always an advantage. Right. Good man. Okay. Caddy time. Okay. So Blackwing, the big boy. I have high hopes for this, but I almost don't want to say why, because basically it undermines the whole point of this test. But the why, obviously the power, but mostly because it's got really long second gear, so I won't have to shift gears. Okay, Jethro, are you ready to let the big dog eat? I am ready to, I hope, do something good. You sound confident, but wary. I'm watching from afar, so go for it. See how many of these corners you can link together. That's a good whipper. That's weird. It felt so good. Wow. There's so much weight. Wow. It felt so good for a minute there, but the extra weight of the Caddy definitely whips on you very quickly. Yeah. It looked like when that came back around, you got to be on your toes because that's a lot of tonnage. Come on Jethro. Wow. Not enough. It's too scared. Transition strikes. So this car definitely has the most potential, but it also has, you have to be so delicate with it. So I went from the big whip and then I was a bit too soft with it and didn't get the transition. So I need to get that Goldilocks middle bear special. All hail. How did that feel? I think I pretty much nailed it. I think there was one tiny bit in the middle. I was like, is it going to straighten? But I think I might have got away with that. I was very, very excited with my own incredible abilities. I think that's the biggest smile I've seen all week on you. Wow. That was mega. What an absolute beast. If I had a real drifter's brain, I wouldn't have tried to extend the drift all the way along the straight between turns two and three, but instead added a fake transition to keep the car sliding. But I guess the point was to see which car could be coaxed and teased to slide even where it shouldn't. And this one is a clear win for the mighty Caddy. Let's forget that an auto might have made it easier and revel in the fact that the manual box takes a deeply challenging idea and makes it even harder, but way more satisfying too. Is there no end to the advantages held by the manual gearbox? I think we can conclusively say autos are basically the death of fun. Obviously we've been having fun in this video. I didn't really think that we could prove manual gearboxes were better than autos by including a Ford Maverick. Although the crew forced me to say that they love this car and they really do. It's been the behind the scenes hero of all of our shoots. Really what I wanted to do was tell you and remind even myself just how good a manual gearbox is. The auto versions of both of these cars would have been quicker in a straight line, quicker around the track and probably easier for that drift because I could have hit an upshift in the middle of it all and it would have all looked very glorious. But I don't care. I don't care if I'm a bit slower in a manual. The point is it involves you. It really just sucks you into the driving experience and in a world where we're getting further and further away from great performance and driver's cars and we can see this EV future just over the horizon, it's great to know that you can still buy these cars and I implore you to do so. Manual gearboxes do rule. End of story.