Posted on 04/10/2022 3:21:08 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Somewhat fortunately the pedals remain in the same order.
I learned to drive a stick shift in the 60s with Jackie Stewart at Monza in an F1 car.
(The part up to “60s” is true)
In the early 90’s I was going to night school and working full time driving hoopie trucks (single axle, 24 foot box vans, manual trans). One day I offered to transport some furniture for a friend using my truck. These were the largest trucks one could drive without needing a CDL (I don’t know if this is still the case).
We got into town and decided to grab some lunch. Naturally, parking choices were limited. The only space anywhere near the restaurant required me to parallel park - and it was on a slight grade.
My passenger was skeptical - she was the type who avoided parallel parking like the plague. I pulled it off in one try leaving my passenger and several restaurant patrons amazed. I explained to her that my delivery route was downtown Seattle where you had to know where all four corners of your vehicle were at all times if you wanted to survive.
“In Italy many stick shifts require you to lift the knob up to put it in reverse - not push down.”
My Ford Fiesta ST with the Getrag 6 speed is like that.
I learned to drive on a 1959 Triumph TR-3 and a 1965 VW Bus. Both were manual. When I had to do the obligatory 6 hours on-the-road for drivers ed I had no idea how to operate the automatic shift. I still own a manual but this ones a six-speed.
The new GM Hummer electric weighs just a smidge under 10,000 lbs., but does 0-60 in 3.0.
Though all my cars and trucks had manual transmissions, none were column shift.
Might take me a while to master the change.
Your electronically shifted manual “future option” already exists and has been around for a few years, and I’ve owned two such cars (a Ferrari and an AMG GT).
FIVE TONS??? Good god. I bet 1 ton of that weight is batteries....
Before i ever owned a car, the military had me take a course to learn driving 2.5 ton trucks with high and low ranges.
We would play trucker sometimes and shift between high and low gears while accelerating. Also learned how to shift without using the clutch, which came in handy years ago when the clutch linkage broke on my Corvette miles from home.
As a gal my first lsson driving stick shift I barreled down a hill on a back dirt road straight into a flock of ducks.....none were hurt but the ‘teacher’ was shouting what to do when i had no idea where anything was! You have to know where the gears are and the clutch and the break before someone’s yelling instructions down a hill!
Sorry, just over 9,000.
Tiy cars and fuel economy drive that no doubt. Automatics take a big chunk out of performance and mileage.
And I am one of a tiny percentage who can drive a stick shift on the steering column!!
I learned how to drive a stick, but was not good at it. Too uncoordinated. I greatly prefer the car to handle the shifting for me.
I really enjoy driving a Nissan with a CVT transmission - have had no trouble with it after 130 K miles (though I have read where that is unusual).
Just over 9,000 lbs? That is bad enough. Does it come with one of those yellow NATO military load classification symbols? It might be too much weight for some of those old back roads bridges...
I learned to drive manual on farm tractors by the age of 7. No syncronizers on those old John Deere, JI Case, and Olivers. Shifting on the go was handy when going down the road with a full load of hay, but if you missed a gear, you would often have to stop and start over.
My Husband’s true love aka his 1998 Corvette has a stick. I’ll take it out for a spin once in awhile just to keep my stick skills up to speed.
You know what else you will have? Computer that knows when you are speeding, pedals that connect to nothing but a sensor. you pull up behind a car and you slow down until you change lanes, push on the gas pedal as much as you want and you will stay behind the the car until you change lanes. My wife went to town last week and the car texted me every time she was speeding. Just a matter of time until they just start sending speeding tickets in the mail. Even easier they will just bill your new digital money account as soon as they get that established.
“A real man should know how to drive a stick shift. One of those skills that you may never need, but when called upon, you don’t want to look like a pajama boy wanker.”
Not just drive a stick shift. Drive a stick shift truck while towing backing and launching a boat off a ramp then pulling that boat back up that ramp out of the water without sliding backwards into the lake or stalling trying to climb the ramp. That’s man work with a clutch.
I learned to drive stick in a F100 with three on the tree while pulling the boat out of the water because grandpa had too many on the water and my great uncle did too. Grandma would see use pull up me.behind the wheel and know we had been “fishing” all day. Good times good times.
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