Driving involvement, agree. But driving involvement and sporty feel are two different topics.

For example, there's more driving involvement in a manual Yugo than a tiptronic 911 Turbo, but no one on this board (I hope) is going to argue that the Yugo has more "sporty feel" than the 911 just because the 911 has a slushbox, which is an "automatic diss object" for some so-called "car enthusiasts".

 

yeah, but who cares about "sporty feel" as defined by magazine. You care about your driving experience with the vehicle. Your driving experience will be sportier with IS250 6 speed than IS350 Automatic.

Same goes with any BMW.

 

"sporty feeling" is part of the driving experience also. While shifting and clutching yourself is the "proactive" side of the experience, the sporty feel -- how the car accelerate, turn, brake, handle, basically how much G-force the car can generate -- the feedback you get back from the car (i.e., communication to the road), is the "reactive" side of the experience.

I would like to see the comparison test of the 335i, IS350 and new G35, all automatic, as that's what the majority of people in the US buys.

 

as long as there is an manual BMW, you will never see all Auto comparison... so far, was there ever an Auto vs Auto comparison of IS350 vs 330i?

 

I bet it will have good seats. Lexus seats are in dire need of more lateral support.

 

Yes there was. I believe MotorTrend did the review.

 

and what was the conclusion? It was 1.5 sec of IS350 numbers?