Someone gave my wife a 2.5 Subaru Forester, automatic,  has about 195k
miles on it.  It runs really well, the couple who gave it to Marie were
getting a little worried about the miles on it so they got another one..they
are palentologists and travel the back country a lot in remote parts of the
west, a bit aged so anyhow....I've been driving it while we're in the desert
SW.  My first encounter with a automatic shift vehicle as a daily
driver...and I don't much care for it.  Around the city, I can see how
people might want them but out in the mountains and desert it seems to waste
a lot of energy moving through the gears all the time.
    We're camped about a half mile off a highway in the desert, one that's
pretty busy with RVs at certain times of day and days of the week.  The
desert  quiet sometimes let one hear a vehicle as it negotiates the road for
about 5 miles in the wee hours and I marvel at some of the huge RVs going
by....,.Roaring along up a very slight grade, shifting up and down, sucking
down the diesel fuel while mom and pop sit about 40' away from the motor,
blissfully un-aware of all the activitiy behind in the engine bay.  Often
you can hear regular cars and pickups cycling back and forth through a
couple of gears...4 or 5 shifts as they go through the hearing
range..Doesn't that 'bug' the drivers?
    I find myself hearing  a few WBX Vanagons, too.  I glance out when I
hear the distinct Vanagon sound and see them out on the highway...I just
can't help comparing the Vanagons to the Gigantor Mo-Hos...though the ratio
is about 1 vanagon per 500 motorhomes...I often wonder if the dweebs in the
mo-hos are having about 25,000lbs more fun...Prolly not..
  Don Hanson