I have an auto tranny. The older preludes came with an amazingly responsive and quicker shifting auto tranny. Its true you lose power and there are other downsides with an auto but I've pretty much learned out to work around them. I'm easily able to keep up with experienced manual drivers on some of the mountain runs i've been on.

But then again, I would probably, most undoubtedly do better with a manual transmission. But many people are ill-informed into thinking that there is no possible way an automatic transmission can perform well.