Reviews
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Let’s not needlessly complicate things here – this is a road test of a gearbox.
We’ve dedicated plenty of ink to the XR8 Sprint in automatic guise, but it’s important for the manual to get its moment in the sun, as 50 per cent of buyers have opted to change gears themselves. Bizarrely, this DIY desire is exclusively a V8 thing, as manual take-up on the turbo six is only around five per cent, hence why there is no manual XR6 Sprint.
To save you the suspense, the addition of an extra pedal doesn’t suddenly transform Ford’s final bent-eight brawler into a Ferrari 488, but the need to select your own cogs does have quite a large effect on the driving experience. The shift itself is… okay. It’s quite heavy and doesn’t like to be rushed, but if you get yourself in sync with how it wants to be driven shifts will slot home cleanly.
Of greater annoyance is the way revs hang when you lift off the accelerator pedal. At first you think it’s your imagination, but lift off the throttle and dip the clutch and, sure enough, the revs will flare slightly.
None of this is the end of world; every car has its own rhythm and once you become attuned to it smooth progress can be made, but it must be said the XR8 does make life harder than it needs to be.
On track the manual works well, offering greater certainty that you’ll have the gear you want when you want it, plus the ability to rev-match downshifts which the ZF slusher can’t do. Third and fourth gears are also much shorter in the manual (3rd: 156km/h, 4th: 203km/h) than the auto (3rd: 182km/h, 4th: 243km/h) so it feels feistier between corners, too.
So which is better, auto or manual?
3.5 OUT OF 5 STARSLIKE: Greater control over the massive power DISLIKE: Not the world’s slickest shift
SPECS: Engine: 4951cc V8, DOHC, 32v, supercharger Power: 345kW @ 5750rpm Torque: 575Nm @ 2200rpm Weight: 1872kg 0-100km/h 4.6sec (claimed) Price: $59,990
