Well, as long as they build the Challenger, I honestly don't care what tranny they put in it; if people want to be snobby about it, well good for me, less people in line to buy one then...
This said, even if I can drive both sticks (20 years experience) and autos, I would like to say that nowadays you can find auto trannies that are quite sophisticated and very well performing. In my present car, a 2005 Ford Mustang GT, I have a 5sp auto tranny and it performs like a champion.
Personally, the ideal choice would be an SMG (BMW) or DSG (Audi) type tranny: offering both of best worlds (especially the SMG), but thinking that DCX will want to have one available for the Challenger, it's just utopic (hey you DCX guys, anyway feel free to surprise me, ok ? ...
...)...
For the macho crowd I also would like to say that
many real muscle cars (=1964-1972) were sold with auto trannies...and today, in the highest form of motorsport competition, Formula 1,
no cars use sticks anymore.
So at the end of the day, using a stick does
not mean that a) you are true to the golden era's muscle cars and b) an auto and/or semiauto tranny is only for soccer moms...
It's the 21st century, guys...