I taught my son to drive in a mobile home park, while he was delivering papers. They had wide concrete streets, and enough traffic and differing terrain to make it good. He finished his training in the desert, between cotton fields, then on secondary roads. He then went on to work in the motor pool in the army, and he can now handle any vehicle, under almost any condition. I trust him. (And I'm a very nervous passenger because of a car accident when I was a passenger...nearly killed me.)
I learned to parallel park in a 1976 Caprice Estate station wagon. At least that one had all the automatic/power amenities.
Motor pool will definitely expose you to a variety.
I worked at a brushless car wash in Boise and we got ALL of the nice cars in town, right down to the Idaho State Patrol Mustang Interceptors. Ya don't get to drive em far, but ya get to drive em all. Plus I learned quite a bit.
- I found out that I fit really well in a Turbo Carrera and that using the clutch in one is a great leg workout.
- I learned that there's enough chrome on the front end of a '56 Buick to plate an entire Honda Accord.
- I found that about 10% of the population never clean their car windows until they're ready to sell the car, and most of these people smoke (the tar buildup I got off of some of those windows would galvanize your innards).
- I discovered that a Jag is so quiet inside that you can break it loose in the wet and never know unless you hit rough pavement or get sideways (try THAT in front of a customer >8( D'OH!).
- I found out that customer traffic peaks at lunch AND at the top of every ODD hour: 9:00am, 11:00am, 1:00pm, 3:00pm and 5:00pm. With the exception of noon, all other even hours were low volume. At 11:00am we'd have the line running 120+ cars an hour; at 2:00pm it'd be about 20 or 30. Weird.
Well, gotta go do more of that w-o-r-k thing. Enjoy your day!