As a teenager, I learned manual on a '65 VW Beetle. But I also had an after-school job driving delivery for an outfit that had a beat-up, poorly maintained Renault 8, with not only a shaky-loose, barely-functional automatic tranny, but pushbutton shift mounted on the dash. It was a horror to drive:
That d@mn car put me off automatic trannies for three decades after that.
Obviously, that picture is of a nice red one made a few years after the one I drove, which was patchy gray and falling apart. The photo is only for illustrative purposes.
When I was a kid I remember seeing a Renault 8 with the “high performance” Gordini package at the 1971 NY Auto Show at the old Coliseum. The European ones actually ran good, but the few sold in the US were sh*t boxes.