My experiance was on beater ‘92 Paseo which I managed not to stall the first time in reverse but I did 3 times subsequently in 1st gear. Read more
A synced manual is nothing, try downshifting from third to second in a 1952 military truck! First is a granny so it’s only really used at certain times, second going up is synced but third going down into an unsynced second requires the double clutch. One nice thing though is that handle on the dash is a throttle,…
Back in my country Colombia I use to have a Chevrolet (Suzuki) Swift GTi 1300 Twim Cam it was a little manual rocket, here in the states I had a manual Toyota Tercel 1993 and today I have Mazda Protege5 2003, Infiniti G35 Coupe 2007 and BMW 328i 2015, these are my manual babies now, love them. Please, “Save the… Read more
I miss driving a stick. Most guys back in high school drove old American muscle cars with 3 speed slush boxes but a good friend of mine in high school had a 1975 Civic CVCC with a 5 speed manual that I thought was the funnest thing in the world to drive. That’s where I learned to drive stick and the first real car… Read more
Dad made all three kids learn to drive stick before driving an automatic. We had grown up with dirtbikes, four wheelers, and using the tractor, so it was natural for us. My brother and I have always insisted on keeping at least one manual transmission vehicle in our personal fleet. In college, I had a 2002 Eclipse GT… Read more
Okay, the first car I drove was an automatic - Mum’s ‘59 Chev Bel Aire -which at the tender age of 13 she’d let me back down our long driveway, come back up, repeat. Alone! But my Dad had a mid 60's Austin Mini which I loved. I watched him drive, work the pedals and gear shift and I was hooked. I spent hours in that… Read more
I learned to drive stick at 13 in my Dad’s work truck, an ‘82 Chevy S-10. After I got a license, I drove a 1973 Ford E250 with a 3 on the tree for a while. Had a few slushboxes after that, then an ‘84 Celica with a 5 speed. My favorite was my ‘95 5.0 Mustang Cobra followed by the ‘98 4.0 4x4 Ranger. Read more
I learned to drive in a car with a stick. Read more
I distinctly remember my first “perfect” 1-2-3 shift - 1970 VW beetle, heavy throttle trying to pull out onto a 45 mph road, dad’s in the passenger seat. He was impressed.. Read more
I was fortunate enough to gain at least minimal experience driving manual on a friend’s car. My first “real” drive in a stick car was picking up my C4 Corvette. I remember sitting in the seller’s driveway thinking “please don’t stall, please don’t stall!” I stalled four times on the 100 mile drive home but it was a… Read more
I have a few stories about driving manuals. The first is when I learned to drive at 15. My dad had a ‘67 Vette stored with his mom but when she passed he elected to sell it instead of moving it to FL for a few reasons. Sadly, this was just before the muscle car boom but that’s another story. Read more
Bought my first car sight unseen on eBay back in September 2003. I was 16 and had my licence, but no car. I always liked those old Saab 900s, but I couldn’t find any nearby (odd, since I was in the Boston suburbs).
Very old joke in the military about a drill sergeant asking recruits “Who wants to be a pilot” raise your hand and he tell you to dig a hole here and pilot it up over there,so when a Gunnery Sergeant at Chu Lai RVN asked me if I could drive a stick I kind of hesitated and said no never have . No problem,report to the… Read more
Learning to drive with a manual is somewhat more challenging for those of us who did so in hilly terrain. (When stopped at an uphill red light, watching the rearview mirror anxiously in hope that the car behind didn’t pull up too closely.) Another complication for those who mastered this skill in the old aircooled VWs… Read more
OK, your picture of the first-gen VW Rabbit hooked me... because I learned to drive stick in a Rallye Yellow ‘76 VW Rabbit 4-door at the age of 12(!). Even earlier than that, Dad used to drive out into the country and let me sit in his lap and steer his ‘63 Olds Cutlass F-85 (auto unfortunately). As soon as my legs… Read more
Oh I know all about this first hand. I just bought my first manual car a month ago. Somehow I got rolling the first attempt but a stop sign made that magic short lived and I stalled it. It took me a few weeks before I could muster up the courage to drive it to work without looking like a fool when I stalled it. (The…