A friend of mine just bought a new sports car that I had the pleasure of driving recently, and I have to say, I’m really kind of hooked. While the cliché is that Porsche drivers represent a certain insecure portion of the male population, I can proudly say that I’m perfectly secure and I still want one of these things. It’s a small convertible that handles hairpin turns at astonishing speed. During my recent visit to Los Angeles, I was able to take the car out for a late night drive: what a good time.

The first thing you notice about the car is that it’s a manual and manual transmissions really gives you the ability to control your destiny. You can accelerate just about as fast as you think your spine can handle as long as you keep the gears low. Get ready, though, just seconds after hitting the pedal it will be time to shift once and then shift again so you don’t blow up the engine at the red line. I find the manual transmission to be extremely responsive, giving the driver a real feel for the road that you really just don’t find in any but the absolute best automatic transmissions.

The other thing I noticed and really grew to appreciate was the efficacy of the truly enormous brakes. 0-60 in less than 5 seconds is one thing; 60-0 in about 2 seconds is another thing entirely.

I am now looking for my own sports car and have decided that whatever car I do end up getting, it will have to have a well-build manual transmission that allows the engine to really get going and make some noise before needing to be shifted. I’ll also want it to have the same enormous brakes and, yeah, a convertible wouldn’t be so bad.

My only concern is that clutches for sports car transmissions tend to be quite a bit more expensive than normal ones, but I suppose that’s not something I’ll be worrying about next time I’m racing down Pacific at 3 in the morning in my new car.