I think GM really wanted to minimize the turbo lag as much as possible and they did it largely in the programming and control components. Alot of people can't appreciate the time spent on these drivability issues by the engineers. Having close ties to this engineering community, I can say without reservation that these guys and ladies are dedicated to getting us the most power with the best drivability and still doing it within the emissions confines they are restricted to. All you would have to do is take my old 1962 Corvair Spyder for a quick spin around the block to compare. You talk about turbo lag........that little flat six made decent power but you could finish your cup of coffee while waiting for the turbine rpm to come up! That made for some very interesting high speed driving techniques.....like rolling the throttle on real, real early in a corner to keep the boost up, alot of two-footing and trail-braking....once again just to keep the thing spooled up. The new HHR SS is head & shoulders above previous and current high performance small cars in the pure drivability of it.

 

yeah that is a good thing, I still am hearing that its all in the programing with and tuning with the automatics. I have a Cobalt SS/SC with a 5 speed so i diden't want another 5 speed car or else i would have gotten the 5 speed in the HHR. But these things are so new that no one has even worked on them yet. I'll bet my money that by the summer time, the automatics and manuals are pulling the same numbers on dynos. I do also think that a friendly fued is going to start between manual and automatic owners as to which one is better, just like the GTO owners