A Vehicle With A Clutch

Jazzy1 said:
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What year, make and model did you learn on?t
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My first car was a 1966 turquoise VW bug. It was a stick. The way I learned to drive it was that my stepdad turned me loose in the barn lot after he showed how the gears were laid out on the floor of the car. I drove it until someone t-boned me in it, then my nephew turned it into a dune buggy. I never did drive sticks well, especially when stopped on a hill.
 
Magna-Carta said:
I leaned to drive in a manual Mazda 323 in the early 80s. Ive only ever own cars with manual transmission. Never even considered owning an automatic.
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A few years ago we flew to Germany. I priced rental cars online, and was surprised to find that almost all the cars were manual transmissions. A car with automatic transmission was more expensive to rent.

I couldn't figure why that was, except that perhaps gasoline usage is less with a manual tranny. Turned out we didn't need to rent because we got transport to the music festival in Bad Doberan from a private driver.
 
I never drove a car with a standard transmission but I did drive an old John Deere B, similar to this one on my grandmother's farm.

I remember my father running along side shouting instructions sprinkled with some extremely colorful adjectives until I finally got the hang of it! 😉🤭😂

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We used that old tractor, from the 40s, right uo through the 80s to plow the driveway at the farm.

After our father died it went to my oldest brother and he eventually sold it to a collector.

Old tractors always make me think of SFs long time member Ken N Tx. 😇
 
ChiroDoc said:
A few years ago we flew to Germany. I priced rental cars online, and was surprised to find that almost all the cars were manual transmissions. A car with automatic transmission was more expensive to rent.

I couldn't figure why that was, except that perhaps gasoline usage is less with a manual tranny. Turned out we didn't need to rent because we got transport to the music festival in Bad Doberan from a private driver.
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I suppose there could be several reasons. I think that could have been based on German and European market demand. In most of Europe, manual cars have traditionally been the norm, so the majority of drivers learn in them and expect them. Rental companies probably just stock what most customers want to drive. Automatics tend to be fewer in number, so they end up being a bit more expensive to rent. Perhaps in part due to how often an automatic might be hired out, and perhaps therefore less revenue, and a higher price because of that?

When I last landed in Miami, I tried to pre boot a manual Mustang GT. But I couldn't find any company that hired a manual version. So I had the auto Mustang GT instead.
 
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