In 1968 Hot Rod magazine made a reference that a 4 speed added inches to your manhood, LOL I didn't think so then, or today.
When I bought my 2005 GTO new, I was driving an 18 wheeler for a living, After 12 hours of shifting gears, the absolute last thing in the world I wanted to do was drive my own car with a manual transmission. In the road tests the A-4 acceleration 0-60 was the same time as the stick 6 speed.
Since I got my drivers license in 1969 most of my cars were stick shifts and were GTOs and Firebirds, My winter beaters were all Pontiacs, but were B bodies, all being older than 1964, had slim Jims and 4 speed hydramatics, not the best representative for a case for automatic transmissions. I even found a 63 Catalina with a BW T-10 transmission for a winter beater one year.
With the manual transmissions I got to spend a lot of time looking up at the floor pans of my cars due to, blown clutches, blown transmissions, jammed competition plus shifters, twisted driveshafts, blown 8.2 rear axles
In 1973 I found 69 GTO for the mere price of $900, but it had a T 400 in it. Price overrode my desire to only own manual transmission performance Pontiacs, so I bought it. I grew to really like that car, built the engine, installed a Trans Go shift kit in it, and put a 4.33 set of gears in it. I actually got to drive that car a bunch, rather than lying under it fixing the driveline. It was just as quick on the street as any manual transmission Pontiac I had ever owned, beat a ton of Brand X cars also.
In 1975 I bought a pretty rare car off of a local car lot, a 1973 Grand Am 4 speed. Again it was really under priced, and had sat on that lot for nearly 4 months. I drove the car for about 18 months, at about 35,000 miles the clutch was out of it. I pulled the 4 speed setup out, and put a T 400 in it. It was much more pleasurable to drive with the T 400, and my X wife was never very good at driving a stick, could drive it easily too.
In 1975 I built my own oval track Lemans/GTO race car (second picture in my signature pics), I had converted the car when it was street driven from the ST300, to a T 400. All the previous dirt cars I helped build were stick cars, I was going out on a limb by building it as an automatic. It was a huge success, and I won 13 races with it in 2 seasons of competition. The 69 GP (in the third picture) was also a T 400, went on to win with it also. In the background behind the GP dirt car you can see my 69 GTO, black with flames on it.
I see no advantage to having a high performance Pontiac with a manual transmission whatsoever. I guess if you buy into Hot Rod Magazine 1968 statement, and you feel you're inadequate, you might need a stick Pontiac......
