Motoring: New style gearbox on the way

OF THE many Heath Robinson-like contraptions that make up the modern car, none is so needlessly complicated as the manual gearbox. For starters, it demands that a car has three pedals when, to paraphrase Dickens, popular prejudice runs in favour of people having only two feet.

Even Grand Prix drivers have given up the challenge. Modern F1 cars do not have foot clutches, the technical boffins having discovered a better way. The clutches of F1 cars are engaged automatically, as drivers change gear using steering column-mounted paddles.

Yet modern road cars still make do with a stick having to be negotiated through an awkward H-pattern and a clutch which, in concert with the brake and the accelerator, demand the most dextrous of feet movements. Even if you are good at it, it can still be a pain. Juggling with clutch, throttle and gears as you fight your way home in nose-to-tail traffic is irritating, tiring and bad for wearing out the soles of good shoes.

Until recently, the only alternative has been the automatic gearbox. In America, where motorists are less macho than in Europe and take less pleasure in driving, almost everybody buys automatic. In the past year or so, new style semi-automatic gear changes have also surfaced, the Porsche 911 Tiptronic was the first, which seek to replicate clutchless F1 gear shifts using paddles, buttons or a stick. Most are at least partly a con, for they use automatic gearboxes as their base. As a result, power is not parcelled to the wheels as efficiently as on a manual gearbox.

That is changing. The large car makers are on the verge of releasing gearboxes which can double as both manuals and automatics. Of the mass makers, Renault is likely to be there first. Next year it launches a new transmission called the BVR (boite de vitesses robotise, or robotised gearbox). I drove a prototype version recently, fitted to a Twingo. At the touch of a button, your fully automatic gearbox (ideal in traffic) can be converted into a five- speed manual. Hit some traffic again, or lose interest in DIY gear changing? Then go back to full auto mode.

There is no clutch, even in manual form. On the prototype I drove, you changed gear by using a conventional stick. In production form, gear changes will be made by F1-style steering column paddles and the change pattern will be sequential, as in a motorcycle. Push a button, and you are back in full auto mode.

The BVR system is likely to be offered in the Clio and Megane from next autumn. Other clutchless manual gearboxes from other manufacturers are imminent.

For those who like to labour, the clutch will probably always have its place. But for those who like their machinery to shoulder as much of the responsibility as possible, the "third pedal" is on its way out. Although few will admit it, most drivers must privately be rather glad.