5 Fast Cars With Surprisingly Rubbish Gear Shifts

1. BMW M235i

The BMW M235i is agonisingly close to hitting petrolhead perfection. It looks great, handles brilliantly and has a brilliantly muscular turbocharged straight-six sending its 322bhp to the rear. The only spanner in the works? The manual gearbox. The throw is too long and the shift imprecise. There are worse ‘boxes out there, sure, but it’s on the whole rather unsatisfying, to the point where we’d fully understand if you shirked this six-speeder for the eight-speed automatic.

2. BMW E46 M3

Unfortunately, BMW has a bit of a track record when it comes to unsatisfying manual gearboxes, as the old E46 M3 proves. It’s certainly not awful, but falls well short of expectations; this is a BMW M car, after all. As with the M235i, it’s much too long and just not precise enough. Perhaps we should mock CT Community Manager John a little less for buying an SMG version…

3. R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R

We love the R34 GT-R. That four-wheel drive chassis, the twin-turbo straight-six and the looks we fell in love with as Gran Turismo-playing teenagers - it’s a bonafide JDM legend for a reason. There’s only really one downside: the gear shift is a bit naff.

As with most of the cars here, it’s not awful, but it’s just disappointing when the rest of the package is so good. The lever is particularly stiff, and you get a rather stodgy feeling as you row through the gears.

4. Mercedes 190E 2.3/2.5-16 'Cosworth'

I owned a 2.3-litre version of one of these cars for three years, and (while it was working, at least) it was an utter joy to drive. But, the five-speed Getrag was pretty woeful. It’s a shame, as the ‘dog-leg’ layout - which puts second, third and fourth in an H pattern - is a great idea, but the shift itself is horribly mushy and takes a lot of effort to bung into place.

5. Jaguar F-Type

We have a bit of a confession to make with this one: we won’t be driving the stick-shifting F until a few weeks’ time (stay tuned for our full verdict), however, media reports have been mixed thus far. A few have labelled it as being too notchy with a disappointingly long throw. This is a bit of a shame; it’s Jaguar’s first manual sports car in decades, after all, so we’d love for it to be great.

Now you’ve read our moaning, why not end on a little positivity? Here are 10 of our favourite manual gearshifts!