Posted on 06/01/2012 7:23:21 AM PDT by US Navy Vet
Go to any given dealership with 100 new cars.
On average, just four of the 2012 models will have manual gearboxes.
The trend of the vanishing third pedal is nothing new, notes The Detroit News.
Even a decade ago, just 8.5 percent of 2002 models were manuals. The paper’s own automotive reporter even confesses she never learned to drive a stick shift until it essentially became a job requirement.
It’s more than a little contradictory to automotive reviews (including many you’ll read here) extolling the pleasure of enthusiastic driving with a true manual gearbox. Likewise, purists gravitate to manuals for tackling their favorite twisting road or occasional track day. It’s the original form of in-car connectivity.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
CC
4 on the floor, and 3 on the column.
My jeep is a stick...wouldn’t have it any other way!
Hah.
I learned to drive on a John Deere "A". Automatic trans. was not an option.
Learned how to double clutch on it also.
I used to always get a manny tranny for economy and reliability, but the new auto tranny’s are so much improved I prefer them, especially in traffic jams. I would only go stick again in a sports or muscle car.
While lighting a cigarette and tuning the radio...
Just us elders.
I’ve owned 8 cars and only 1 was an automatic. I took my driver’s test in a manual. Recently I was shopping for a newer used car and tried a few of those ‘paddle-shifter’ transmissions and missed the control of a manual.
And I’m a relative young-un (42), and most of my gear-head friends drive manuals, but most others drive automatics.
If it doesn’t have three pedals, I don’t want it.
Boring right back at ya.
I’ll keep using my stick, and make it click.
Made that mistake one time, and one time only. Never again.
This must be a subversive liberal plot...
I can drive one, my husband taught me...marital no-man’s land. I like them except for hills with ice and snow covered roads.
It was required when I took driver’s training but was no big deal because I was already and experienced driver in a Ford F150 with 3 on the tree.
I prefer a stick to an automatic.
I always drove stick’ even from high school when I first had my ‘ricer’ and raced it on the weekends. I have always thought anyone who drove automatic’ were not actual drivers. Now I drive a 6 speed auto (sigh)
I remember trying to teach one of my kids to drive a stick about 16 years ago. This kid is brilliant, a double major in the sciences and instructional tempered as well. But the car I had was equiped with a grabby quick spring pressure hydro clutch and he couldn’t get the feel for it. It made him so mad I thought he would have a stroke.
When a lot of use older guys learned we had steering column mounted three speeds with low rpm higher torgue engines on old pick-up trucks and sedans to start learning on. It made it a lot easier to get started. Even if you slammed it and popped it, it would still muddle through without the stalls and giant jerks of the higher rpm engines of the 80s and 90s.
My current vehicle is the first on in almost 25 years that has automatic transmission. Before that every car but one had manual transmission. I think I can still drive a stick.
I married a shiftless woman; but that was remedied in the first year.
guilty...
Up to a 18 speed :)
have a stick.
It would seem that the government overlords would have mandated more standard transmissions because of the fuel economy involved.
Go figure
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