Yeah, good discussion overall, just know there’s no one ‘best’, just ‘preferred’. 5 speed minimum, 6 speed preferred.
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I think that “fault” is not the right word, it’s just how cars of that era were built. In 1965 gas was cheap and plentiful, 3000 RPMs at 60 mph was not considered a problem.
With a 3.23:1 rear gear and a 2.20:1 transmission first gear launches weren’t drag racer quality, but plenty strong for the street. At 1:1 in 4th, 3000 RPMs at 60 mph was okay until gas got expensive. Overdrive would have helped a lot, but as I said, no overdrive transmissions of that era (early ‘70s) were anywhere near strong enough.
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In 1965 gas was 31 cents/gal, or $3.05 today. The actual average price this week is $3.32/gal has has gone up, but not by much.
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In 1978 gas prices were 5 times 1965 prices. Gas mileage became a higher priority for me as a college student.
True, but we have some dandy 5 and 6 speeds available today!
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78 Rabbit, 73 Volvo 144, and 70 Datsun 510 Wagon all had 4spds in the family fleet. We had a 3spd manual in a early 60’s Dodge 1/2ton truck that seemed good enough for hauling duty which was all the truck did for the 5yrs we had it. The Datsun could have used a 5spd in our opinion but could still get up to speed quickly with only 4, The Volvo and VW were pretty well matched to the 4spd for normal use.
Replaced the VW with a 1990 Mazda Protoge 5spd that had double the power of the 78 Diesel VW while weighing slightly more. Could cruise in 5th all day at 70mph on the highway while getting 40mpg compared to the VW getting winded at 60-65mph.
My brother’s the current stick shift owner with a 09 GTI 6spd,06 Legacy SW 5spd and a 1987 Mazda B2200 5spd 4x4. The GTI’s his favorite but the Legacy’s the winter car until it becomes the teen driver car. He’s determined to teach his children how to drive stick.
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I owned a 72 Datsun 510 automatic (3 sp) and a 71 4-speed. Oh, yeah, did it need a 5th gear! And a 4th for the automatic!
Still did well on the morning 0-50 test pulling onto the main road into town with a mile of 50mph limit. Would have liked better mpg though.
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lol … yeah, seems there maybe a hidden agenda, eh?
My POS Renault Caravelle could have used two more lower gears.
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Not all 6-10 speeds are bad news. One of the transmissions that Stelantis put in heavy duty Rams between 2010 and 2020 has been known to be very annoying. You’ve obviously got the bad one. The one in my Ram 1500 is an 8 speed and it is one of the sweetest transmissions I’ve had in a truck. The new HD transmission in the HD diesels are revised 6 speeds and known to be quite nice.
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Removing my comment doesn’t change the fact it WAS liked
fwiw . . . many of our family’s cars have 5-speed automatics and they’ve all been very reliable
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I am in no way an expert.
But maybe it depends on the vehicle, and how it will be used? Consider how hilly your area is (in terms of need to downshift, upshift), what type of low traction conditions you will meet, and the weight, durability of your vehicle. And what you want out of it.
(Many people who drive under low traction conditions like manual transmissions, because it increases control. OTOH, if your reflexes are slow, AWD has advantages too.)
I had a 1994 4WD Ford Ranger that was often driven on dirt roads (but not really off-road), under low traction (snow, ice, mud) conditions. In addition to 5 (I think) 2WD speeds, it had a 2nd lower speed transfer case in 4WD mode with more gears that handled low speed conditions. It is often the case in such conditions that you do not want any slippage between the tire and the surface, because that reduces control or makes it impossible to move (it rarely makes sense to gun the engine when slippage occurs), so very low speed gears make sense. It was very useful driving in the mountains of West Virginia, especially in snow or ice. And it helped get me out of muddy parking lots & dirt roads after rain a few times. (So did very good tires, traction mats, emergency chains, etc.)
In addition I think most manual transmissions of that era could handle engine breaking (i.e., put it in low gear when driving downhill) to reduce brake wear. My current Toyota Venza 2013 automatic transmission does not handle engine breaking well (it makes noises, and/or refuses to downshift), even though I can tell it to down shift.
But based on the vehicles you have listed, you perhaps don’t drive in super-hilly terrain, nor often have need of ultra-low gears to reduce slippage. So maybe you should ignore what I said?
I have never driven a sports car (except for a rental Thunderbird - not what I wanted - I had reserved a 4WD SUV to take me up into snow country), and can’t tell you what makes sense if you like to go or accelerate fast.
In terms of reliability, I would personally be tempted to look that up for individual vehicle models, rather than generalize. And recognize there are trade-offs - e.g., if you really need 4WD, or maybe even AWD, that is worth some decrease in reliability and future maintenance costs, which you should expect. And if you like to go fast or accelerate fast, you have already probably accepted a huge decrease in reliability in virtually every respect, as well as an increase in price.
I.E., there may be no simple answer other than “it depends”.
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Why would breaking an engine be wanted ? Oh, you meant Braking .
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You misspelled a word, you might get banished from the forum.
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Actually, I don’t understand why engine braking isn’t universal anymore. Granted, I grew up and learned to drive in an area where there were a lot of hills, but my impression (correct or incorrect) was that everyone was taught that using the brakes to slow you down much on long hills would destroy those brakes, and you would lose control.
Have brakes improved in some way, which would slow down brake wear, so that many people aren’t taught that anymore? (In fact, some time ago I took an online course that was supposed to reduce my insurance rates, that taught that transmissions are not designed to be able to take engine braking, and that no one should use it.)
And is everyone still taught to use engine braking in hilly or mountainous terrains, and they choose their vehicles accordingly?
And would you guys agree that there isn’t a simple answer to the o.p.'s question - that the optimal transmission design depends on many things, such as terrain, climate, usage, the engine torque and power capabilities, the driver’s skills and reflexes, and the what the driver wants out of their vehicle?
Even basic questions like what design optimizes MPG (miles per gallon). It seems like a continuously variable transmission might theoretically do that, at least on flat terrain - but it might be impossible to design a CVT that didn’t involve significant slippage all the time, which would increase wear, complexity, & maintenance costs, failure rates, and perhaps to some extent decrease MPG over a fix number of speeds design.
After all, there have to be good reasons why CVTs aren’t widely used on bicycles, which is an example where efficiency matters a lot, nor very often on racing and sports cars.
So there pretty much have to be tradeoffs and inherent inefficiencies. But I remember reading somewhere that school buses and long haul trucks, where efficiency, running costs, and maintenance costs, matter a lot, tend to have more gear speeds than most vehicles.
(And sorry, guys if I misspelled anything, or made a grammar booboo. Please don’t ban me. 
We really ought to have overhauled English language spelling, vocabulary, and grammar to be a lot simpler long, long ago. But this is the wrong forum for that - it’s not about language engineering. Besides, people who love poetry would complain a language optimized for ease and efficient unambiguous information transfer, restricted their artistry too much. Another example of the idea that there is no one optimal design - that what you individually want out of a something dictates what design is best. I treat vehicles as translation functions, that move me and my stuff, and sometimes function as quick and easy to set up tents, but some people treat them, and driving them, as works of art.)
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It is a lot cheaper to replace brake pads then a tranny. And years ago, most vehicles had drum brakes, today they have disk brakes which stop a lot better.
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Engine braking was more effective with the Diesel Rabbit we used to own, don’t believe we ever tried it or at least to the same degree with the Mazda Protoge 5spd that replaced it. On the stretch of road near where i grew up that follows a set of rolling hills you can engine brake if you wish with a manual transmission but the disc brakes on most cars will slow you down enough, otherwise if you were doing 35mph at the top of the hill you’d be going 45-50 at the bottom. Fairly sure it’s the same road where this scene in Heart Like a Wheel was shot (Shirley Muldowney Biopic)
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Fear. People are afraid to move the shift lever, something could go wrong.
I downshift nearly every time I drive, it provides smoother deceleration and less “riding the brake” going downhill. I don’t care if brakes cost less than transmissions, that idiom makes no sense. Engine braking does not employ friction in the transmission to slow the vehicle. There is a greater load on the transmission each time the driver accelerates, slowing one time is not going to damage the transmission.
When using cruise control 1996 Dodge uses engine braking to control the vehicle speed when descending a grade. If the vehicle speed increases more than 3 mph over the set speed, the computer will downshift the transmission to prevent vehicle speed run away. There are many vehicles that use engine braking while using cruise control. Don’t the engineers know brakes are cheaper than transmissions?
Engine braking is typically very poor with a diesel engine as there is no (closed) throttle valve to slow the engine, this is why exhaust brakes are installed. Engine braking with a small displacement diesel engine would be nearly non-existent.
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To my knowledge, engine braking was never universal. I know when I took drivers education in 1966 , engine braking was not mentioned. Did I know about it, yes. There were road signs advising driver to use lower gears to conserve the brakes. Back the there were still a lot of cars on the road with two speed automatics.
Back to George’s question, manufacturers will make odd decisions about what transmission is available. I had a 72 CJ5, AMC decided the 304 V8 only needed a 3 speed, the I6 had a 4 speed.
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