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As a manual transmission fanatic, I'm always entertained by people with shift-tronic, tiptronic, or steptronic transmissions who are convinced they drive a manual transmission vehicle. There's no talking them out of it, so I don't even bother telling them the presence of a torque converter disqualifies it from the definition. Driving a manual seems to have become more important as a status symbol than an actual performance advantage, so marketing has successfully convinced a great majority they are one and the same. Enter the hill start assist introduced by Dodge for the 2009 Challenger (thanks Enorym). It looks like a sufficient number of people didn't swallow the automatic-as-manual pill, and now instead of glorifying a power-sucking torque converter into a manual, a genuine manual transmission has an assist to help novices get over the fear of starting off from an incline. I just hope there are enough people who know what a torque converter is opt for the manual on this model, and the demise of the manual transmission is delayed long enough for my 2011 Focus ST.