About cars... Am I THAT old?

[thomasortega]

It always intrigued me the number of Americans that don't know how to drive a manual transmission car. Every time I see Kevin's old truck with a decent manual transmission my eyes shine like diamonds and you can almost see thousands of heart shaped baloons floating out of my head.

My husband, for example NEVER SAW a manual car and probably has absolutely no idea of what is stepping in three pedals with only two feet and why, as mentioned on the link. (I gasp every time I remember I did that zillions of times)

When i was living in Dallas, a millennial guest arrived at the hotel with a rental car. The whole hotel knew he was arriving and stopped to watch him jumping like a frog (it was a whatever tiny supersports car like a ferrari, lamborghini, Porsche, whatever.)

He stopped right in front of the lobby entrance, made the check-in and went to park his car properly... OMG.

A mix of blender without the pitcher, gears scratching horribly, frog jumping, tires squeaking and obviously the engine fainting every time he tried to move the car. He leaves the car ready to call the car rental because his car is "defective".

I told him his car wasn't defective at all and offered myself to park his car. It was horrible to fit in that tiny sardine can, but I did it. I started the car, parked it super smoothly everybody at the hotel came to see (first because it was a whatever ultra expensive car, second because they were shocked because I knew how to drive manual.

His comment was more than laughable. "WTF, they start inventing this "new" ways to drive but are they expecting people to go back to driving school to learn how to use this "new" type of transmission?

He LITERALLY had no idea what was that "strange" pedal to the left of the brake and he was afraid of stepping on it and end up breaking something.

Ok, some people don't know how to drive manual. For me that's still a little strange but not the end of the world, as here in the USA it's not mandatory to take the driving test with a manual car at the DMV. (In Brazil it's forbidden to use an automatic car for the test and 99% of the cars are manual anyway because people hate automatic transmission) but WHY THE HELL THOSE F-WORD MILLENNIALS RENT A MANUAL CAR IF THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO DRIVE MANUAL?

The link is more than laughable. Some of the "features" I'm very glad they no longer exist. They forgot to include the windshield washer that had a rubber pump that you had to step on it to "spit" some water on the windshield.

Let's laugh together!

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g27557833/old-school-car-features/?utm_source=facebook_dda&utm_medium=cpm&utm_campaign=dda_fb_cd_d_i_g27557833&fbclid=IwAR1xLNqCk6P4b5BvTq3ynDSiEDEenhof51V9nSXcAP2D2h88gQPR0KFhAAo

 

[DADoES]

 
The sisters and I learned to drive dad's "Old Blue" Chevy standard out in the pasture, at pre-driving age.  The sisters were small enough they took turns one steering, one handling the pedals.

 

[yogitunes]

My Dad would only own a stick shift, but it was more so us kids wouldn't ask to drive it since he figured we couldn't figure it out...

hence there was no internet/youtube/google back then....probably better off, as I have yet to find a millennial with a Smart Phone show one bit of intelligence...take away their phone and their lost...lol

a good friend showed me how to drive his VW Bug with a stick shift....in which I also used this to take my driving test.....

got home that same day, asked Dad for the keys, and showed both of my sisters how to drive a stick shift....

Dad had a Grand Wagoneer with a three speed on the tree....I'll save you the time to look that one up, Stick shift on the steering column

I preferred a shifter on the floor myself...and every car I ever owned until the Jeep was a manual...I have the AutoStick option, but its not quite the same...

my first automatic was a 1988 Chrysler Lebaron Turbo with UltraDrive, a tranny that would send you running back to a stick shift fast....but in any case, when your so used to pushing the left pedal, NOW hitting the brake instead, and always a hand on the floor shift, ready to select a gear....somethings you can't get out of your head...

there was also a time when if you didn't know how to drive a manual, car dealers socked it to you for the pricing of an automatic....

remember Hillerosis, the fear of rolling backwards on a hill with a manual....

I think the best part of today, we have up to 6 speed manuals....

 

[earthling177]

I'd say at least half the people here in the Northeast know how to drive a stick shift just fine. For the longest time, stick shifts were about a couple of thousand dollars cheaper, so everyone who had student loans to pay or was just starting life away from their parents and didn't have a big salary were buying stick shifts.

Around the world people as early as 12 learn to drive a stick shift just fine, nothing too hard about it, certainly easier than to ride a bicycle.

 

[tomturbomatic]

I was in Baltimore with John when I got stopped on a hill in traffic at a light. I was wondering what I was going to do when he told me to set the parking brake which was between the seats also. When the light turned green, it was a matter of releasing clutch and brake in symphony and everything went forward smoothly. I love how a manual keeps you one with the car. 

 

[Ultramatic]

Standard? What's that?

 

 

My dad knew how to drive manual, all his trucks were "3 on the tree" until 1970, when he got his first automatic truck and never looked back. For cars, he went automatic as far back as 1954 (Chevrolet Power-Glide). As for me, I sorta' attempted with a manual Ford F-100 back when I was 14. Never got the hang of it, and never liked it. I was like, "but WHY?. "There's Turbo-Hydramatic...screw this." When I went to Europe for the first time in 1987 I was amazed (among other things) that virtually every car was standard, the complete opposite of the U.S.. In 1988 I returned and rented my first car and discovered I had to pay extra for the luxury of an automatic. 

 

We may had been forced to drive smaller cars in general, but we still love our comforts, one of them being automatic transmissions.

 

[lorainfurniture]

I grew up on manual transmissions, one of my larger box trucks is still a 6 speed manual. I certainly can appreciate the nostalgia, but I don’t think I will ever have a mt car as a daily driver again.

 

[toploader55]

My 2004 Tacoma is a 5 speed.

Manual is getting harder to find. When I priced a New Tacoma with a 5 speed, (and nearly had to call the EMTs when I saw the price) there are only 1 or 2 models that you can get a 6 speed.

Everything else is Automatic. I don't think you can get a Tundra with a Manual.

I think in 1972 was one of the last years you had to take your driving test on a standard.

 

[foraloysius]

I learned to drive in a standard and have a license for it. I had no problems with using three paddles and a stick shift. But when my father bought a car with an automatic transmission (Opel Senator 1978) I was sold to automatic transmission immediately. Never a standard again.

 

[norgeway]

I grew up in rural America!

So I learned on 3 on the column manual shift Or as its called in the south Straight Drive, My next door neighbor taught me to back a farm trailer at age 14 with a 1970 CJ5 Jeep, no power steering lol, and of course driving a tractor is another thing city folks have never done,,but truthfully, I absolutely hate shifting gears give me automatic,

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

Ben McPeek

Okay, I think I'm sold on a manual transmission thanks to this guy:

(Though it looks like a Mercury Marquis is his other car)

I'll take a NEW Fiat 500 in that red, then, maybe for my next vehicle...

-- Dave

 

[ea56]

My parents mostly had stick shift cars when my Dad was still alive, he didn’t like automatics, although we did have a few cars with AT. When my Mom used to drive us to school in the mornings down San Pablo Ave., the kid that was riding shot gun got to shift when Mom clutched, it was great fun and my brother and I used to fight over who got to rid in the front. This was either in first her Jaguar 3.8 sedan then the last car she had before Dad died in 62’, a 62’ Studebaker Gran Turisimo Hawk, both with four on the floor. She had extensions installed on shift lever and blocks on the brake and clutch pedals because she was only 4’9”.

Then, when I was a teen and we moved to the country after Dad died, the neighbor down the road taught me to drive stick in a 39’ Chevy Flatbed Truck. It was the most forgiving clutch ever and perfect for learning to drive a stick.

I haven’t owned a stick now since 97’, when I had to trade my 95’ Tacoma with a 5 speed because the arthritis in my left hip was getting so bad that driving in the stop and go commute traffic after work was excruciating.

Unlike most here, I actually prefer a three on the tree. There is a lot less shifting. To me that 5 speed in the Tacoma was at least one gear too many. Better an old school 3 speed with overdrive. And the thought of having to go thru 6 or more gears is something I have no interest in. Around here now, with the terrible traffic, the only manual transmission car I would be interested in as a daily driver would be ideally a 3 on the tree with OD, or 4 speed, anything else would be just too much unnecessary hassle IMHO.

All that being said, I would love to take a nice long country road drive with a stick shift car, just for old times sake. I know it would be just like riding a bike, you never forget that coordination required once you finally master it.

Eddie

 

[rp2813]

My dad tried to teach me manual shifting on the '50 GMC, which has a column shift, when I was around 17.  The clutch pedal on that thing has a really strong spring, and I couldn't get the hang of it.  I know he was disappointed at the time.

 

Then my sister had me give it another try with her super stripped down '65 Chevy Biscayne going back and forth on our long driveway.  I think it was her instruction, along with a more forgiving clutch pedal, that helped me catch on quickly, and I conquered the GMC after that.  It just so happened that her friend's '72 Datsun 510 was parked out front, so after I mastered the Chevy, she had me try the Datsun.  Wow!  No slow release required on that clutch!  I've appreciated Japanese clutches ever since.

 

25 years later, Dave bought a VW Passat GLX wagon with a 5-speed.  He was murdering both the transmission and the engine (not shifting into 5th on the freeway until I finally told him to, etc., etc.) and after a year or two I told him to buy something with an automatic and I'd take over the Passat.  That was a great car to drive, and I loved the stick -- except in stop-and-go traffic on the way home from work.

 

I got my 2003 Subaru Baja a few years ago.  I decided a stick wasn't such a bad idea since I had test driven a Baja with an automatic and it was pathetic about getting up to speed while climbing an on-ramp up to the freeway. 

 

I pride myself on being able to make a manual shift feel like an automatic to anyone else in the car.  That is flatly impossible with the Subaru.  I even went onto a Subaru forum and asked about the jerky engagement and and general sloppiness.  More than one responder advised that I was experiencing normal behavior.  I have killed the engine on the Baja more than on any other manual I've ever driven.  It's the exception to every other Japanese stick I've experienced, but it's such a handy car that I continue to deal with it.  At some point I'm going to take it in and have it checked out.  I simply can't accept that its behavior is normal.

 

Also, Subaru offered a "hill holder" clutch for a while.  Why they ever dropped it, I don't know.  It wasn't anything new, though.  Apparently the "hill holder" was available as far back as the '40s on certain American makes.  I wish the Baja had that.  I avoided underpasses with signals at the top for many months after I bought that car, but at this point I'm fairly confident even when navigating serious ups and downs in San Francisco.

 

Tom is spot-on with his description of driving a manual.  I've been driving the GMC for 47 years now.  That's longer than my dad did.  I know that truck like the back of my hand and can sense the slightest issue it might be having when I'm behind the wheel.  It truly is like being one with the vehicle when I drive that truck, and it's something I'll continue to enjoy until I'm too weak to hold the clutch pedal to the floor.

 

[lowefficiency]

>> The link is more than laughable. Some of the "features" I'm very glad they no longer exist.

The list was a mix... I'd love to see T-Tops make a return.

On transmissions, when a person says a manual is "complicated" to drive, they are forgetting (or unaware of) an enormous amount of history. We forget just how far things have come, and how nice *modern* manual transmissions actually are. Low pedal effort, synchromesh gears, hill-holder, starter interlock, long life roller throw-out bearings, modern clutch friction materials, 6+ speeds, etc, etc.

By contrast, a Model T's manual transmission is immensely more complicated to drive. And that's assuming that a modern driver could even get the car started, or keep it running well with the lever-operated fuel and spark advance controls.


Even some of the intermediate "automatic" manual transmissions were difficult. Take the Preselector gearbox for example. More elegant for sure, but you have to think ahead more than you do with a more basic transmission.


Different vehicles had their quirks, too. The Trabant, for example, had a two-stroke engine, with the engine oil being mixed with the gas. In a Trabant, you couldn't coast for long at all, or engine-brake, as the engine was starved for lubrication if the throttle was closed, and doing so could seize the engine. The Trabant was fitted with a special freewheel to allow coasting, but only when in 4th gear! Any other gear, and you needed to either be on the gas, or in neutral, to avoid causing engine damage.

 

[iheartmaytag]

I learned how to drive on a 4 speed

A 1973 Vega. It could do zero to 60 in 3.5 years.

Where I got into the biggest trouble was my second car, a Mercury Marquis with 400 cu in engine and auto. I was used to driving the Vega with manual brakes and manual trans. On the test drive mistake #1. I pull to a stop sign, being very careful of the power brakes. Everything was fine until I hit the clutch, which it didn't have. What it did have was a very wide brake peddle. Drew lots of attention to myself on that one.

Mistake #2, I start to pass a car where I am used to putting the accelerator to the floor, praying and hoping you get around the car. I stomped the Merc and it went Woompft and I was doing 85.

I've owned one manual since then, a 5 speed that time. Now the Jeep has a 5 speed but it's automatic/overdrive.

 

[wayupnorth]

I learned on a 65 Galaxie how to operate "3 on the tree" to a 69 Fairlane to a 72 Vega POS to a 72 Celica also POS, 77 280Z, 81 Subaru, 83 Subaru (both with the hill holder clutch) to an 85 S-10 truck to an 88 Blazer, which was the last standard I owned. Many new ones today do not even offer a standard shift as an option.

 

[iheartmaytag]

Tim,
I didn't type POS when I typed Vega. I thought that was automatically implied. It appears to be the opinion from anyone that has ever had the misfortune to own one.

 

[earthling177]

Two very short thoughts:

One: Many many times I've been in the situation of driving a car which was supposedly exactly like mine, same year, make and model with the same accessories (friends' and family members' cars) but which it would take me a short bit of time to get used to the clutches. They tend to vary from car to car even when they are supposed to be identical, and once one accepts that it's not because one sucks at driving manual transmission, it's because cars vary, it's easy. The "attitude" is very different -- in countries were most cars are manual transmission, most people just go "oh, well, that happens, they'll be fine in a minute or two", people are less self-conscious than here, where if you stall the car or make it shake even once everyone looks at you like worse than if you farted loudly in a crowded elevator. ;-)

Two: as far as I can tell, Subaru still offers the hill-holder thing, at least it came as standard feature in a MOL Subaru Outback we bought back in 2010 (and still have), but it is an automatic transmission with ABS and Electronic Stability Control, so it might be part of that system, I dunno.

 

[foraloysius]

All our manual transmission cars came with a hill holder... lol