Thanks SkylarkCustom and others who have responded to this post. Happy New Year all. I am not convinced about dual-clutch gearboxes either. I owned a brand new 2012 Skoda Fabia RS some years ago. This was the only transmission on offer. It didn't play up but I believe it was given an upgrade when the car was serviced. Given a choice, I would certainly have opted for a five-speed manual (which would also surely have been cheaper). I don't think the growing complexity of cars makes life easier, when I think about it. My Magna has a three-speed automatic with overdrive fourth and works beautifully with no obvious gaps. (Second takes it to 120 at Lakeside before the automatic upshift to third and the speedo shows 165 at the kink.) I am a great fan of left-foot braking in autos, incidentally.