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Maintaining Standards
On the flagship podcast this week, James Lileks talked about how young people who yearn for driverless cars will miss out on the freedom of driving oneself, and made a brief aside about the disappearance of manual transmissions. Growing up in the early ’70s, most of us learned to drive in big sedans with automatics, but after the oil embargo suddenly there were scads of Japanese cars with precise little manual transmissions.
It helped that the early Japanese imports had horrendously bad automatic transmissions and not much torque. So we became converts. We still own several cars with manual transmissions, although they are harder to find than ever. As long ago as 2001, we had to go 300 miles to find and purchase a CR-V with a manual.
Our cars range from my 1999 F250 (manuals no longer offered), which has a giant shifter rod and a cue-ball shift knob (special order); to the ’73 VW Thing, with its ubiquitous air-cooled VW transmission; to my 2017 GT350, which has an incredible modern six-speed Tremec that is the smoothest thing ever. I’m often tempted to buy an aftermarket knob but the factory one is pretty good.
We have one automatic transmission (Ford Escape) which is much preferred for long trips and slogging through stop and go traffic. I know that modern autos are very good, and that paddle shifters are in fact faster on the track than old-school manuals, but the joy of rowing through the gears will be missed.
When I was a new firefighter, we had an old GMC pumper with a three-speed high/low transmission; becoming proficient at shifting that truck was a joy. All of our fire trucks have automatics now, and we don’t replace clutches like we used to.
So feel bad for those young people who will never, ever get to enjoy three on the tree.
Published in General
Best time to learn is when you have a rental. Let the rental company pay for the clutch.
When I was 16 (in 1979), I was riding back from a cross-country ski training camp in northern Minnesota with my high school ski coach and a few others in his VW bus. He needed a break from driving, and I was the only other person who could drive a manual, including the assistant coach. That had to be one of the mushiest gear boxes I’ve ever experienced.
Manuals are much more fun to drive, but I’ve reached the point where an automatic suits me just fine. My car has a continously variable (CV) automatic transmission. It’s smooth, yet provides great performance coupled with my hybrid drive.
This thread keeps bringing back memories. The Fiat 600 had doors that opened at the front, not the back. On mine, the straps meant to keep the door from fully opening had broken, so they could be tied back.
One summer I worked mowing lawns with the son of a friend of mine. We took out the passenger seat and put a mower there and also had a rack on the roof for a second mower. (This was after the disastrous attempt to tow a mower behind us with a rope and watching it pass up going down a hill.)
We would drive around mowing grass and when we were done, go off to get ice cream. Eventually, my partner’s younger sister was invited to come with us. After a while, my preference was just to take the sister. That lead to dating, engagement and marriage and she is sitting across the table from me now.
We’ve been married 48 years and I guess the Fiat had a big part in that.
Or visit Brazil and rent a car. Manual is standard there too. And you will visit all the gears frequently, because Brazilian car manufacturers don’t put a lot of horses under the hood.
The last car I rented had an idiot light within the tachometer, apparently pegged to the only thing a tachometer knows, urging me to shift. I didn’t like that. People who know how to shift gears reserve the right to decide when.
CVTs are usually tuned for maximum efficiency, which makes them wimps.
If you design and build for farther along the performance curve, a CVT is actually an ideal transmission for those of us who like power.
My current automatic is buttery smooth, 420hp, and goes 0-60 in 5 seconds. Golly, it is fun. But a CVT would be even better.
One of the great features of our two moves to Europe this century – the default manual. At no point on the four cars we owned or the various rentals was an automatic on the radar – our budget was too low.
Worst manual – Fiat 500 XL
Best manual – Volkswagen Up
That’s like a Beach Boys song.
I understand that you and Concretevol had great fun in your Mustangs during the meetup.
When I was a pup, and helping a local farmer get in tobacco, I learned to drive a truck that had to be double-clutched.
My daughter learned to drive on a manual Dodge Dakota. It’s a skill that never leaves you. My son (two years younger) still can’t drive a manual transmission.
Manual transmissions are a pain in the ass when you come up on traffic stops on the interstate. It’s when you wish for weak clutch springs.
And comin’ off the line when the light turns green
Well she blows ’em outta the water like you never seen
I get pushed out of shape and it’s hard to steer
When I get rubber in all four gears
She’s my little deuce coupe
You don’t know what I got
In the late ‘80s, I think, the Capitol Steps sang something about Little Doc Koop, you don’t know what she’s got
I hope they sang it “he.” Dr C. Everett Koop is male.
I think it was meant to be advice from Dr. Koop.
Every car I have owned in my life has been a manual transmission car (not counting the wife’s car, but her first automatic was after we had our first kid.)
I currently own three manual transmission cars, and my plan is to keep all three of them until I can no longer afford to maintain them, which I hope will be another couple of decades (though they are all 2007 or 2008 models, so I’m getting to the point where maintenance costs are going to start going up.)