The Fife said:
Corporal Punishment said:
Yep. Every car I've ever owned is a manual transmission. This is one of the hidden benefits. Whenever I take it to get serviced, I peek out the window to see if the attendant can move it. Runs 50/50. Best anti-theft device I've ever not paid for.
My truck has a 3 on the tree. It's been years since I've run into anyone who knew how to drive it.
I was helping friends from church open up their jewlery shop the spring after I started driving. I had only been driving about 3-ish months. Anyway, the guy had this old panel van -- think Suburban without the windows and seats. We were moving stuff from a house to the shop and he asked me to drive the van. OK, no problem, I could drive a standard, even the 3 speed column shift. However, my lack of experience got me in to a little trouble!
I made it fine about halfway there and was stopped at the red light on the service road of a busy intersection. I was the first one in line and when the light turned green, I let off the clutch and it...died. Weird. Did it again. Died again. I messed with that thing for what seemed like an eternity (20 seconds) IN THE MIDDLE OF THE INTERSECTION when it dawned on me that I had the darn thing in THIRD gear and not first.
That's the kind of mistake you want to make on a side street with no one around, but guess who became a pro years later starting out in 2nd, 3rd, and even 4th gear in his 5 speed 200SX!