crysta1c1ear, well in the 50's a manual transmission had what 3 maybe 4 gears? I don't think too many people would be skipping gears. Further, it's not that hard to shift a sequential transmission two gears, I agree it would be a bit odd, but not difficult. If you want to skip 3rd, press clutch...
My original question was more to do with historic reasons for adopting transmissions with a typical H-pattern for shifting gears. If I was an engineer for GM in the '50s, I would have tried to get a sequential transmission to be untilized instead of the H-pattern.
My guess is if a company came up with a sequential transmission for say a honda civic, subaru WRX, and other sport compact cars, the company would be rolling in $$$. Kids these days spend couple grand on wheels and tires alone, you can't imagine the $$ they would spend on something like a solid...
I was just pondering the same question yesterday.
So for example, you have a car dyno at 150 horsepower at the wheels and the manufacture states that on an engine dyno the engine will produce 180 horsepower. This means the drivetrain causes approximatley a loss of 30 horsepower, or 16.7%. Now...