I am going to pick up a brand new RX-8 tomorrow. Worked out all the final details and it's all ready for me. I could not be happier. I did a bunch of research and really fell in love with the car very quickly.
Anyways, there is no doubt this is a real drivers car and is better suited for the manual transmission. I went with the AT for practacality reasons and I'm not that overly obsessed with performance. When you look at all the other cars on the road you quickly realize how much cooler the RX-8 is than many (ok, all)of them, not to mention, even with the AT, this car can stillmove. The car came with the smaller rims, which I am thinking of using as snow tires and get some bigger, nicer rims for the warmer months.

Basically, there are two types of cars in this world.
One kind is the car that you park, and then walk away.
Then there are the others. These are the cars you park, then walk away, and turn around to get one final look of the car before you leave.
Thats what an RX-8 is to me, and I'm damn glad to own one.