Can you drive stick shift?
Disappointed that I’m just learning how to drive manually. How many people do you think drive stick nowadays?
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I’ve driven stick on a few cars and also have driven stick in South Africa on the opposite side (left hand shifts).
Your sister's been driving stick since a young age. Shoulda had her teach you.
Do americans unironically use automatic cars? lmao
Yes, almost exclusively.
Generally no reason to drive anything else these days unless it’s for fun (e.g. a sports car). And even then plenty of high end sports cars only come with dual clutch autos.
we have a fuckhuge country and a bunch if money. Manual is for poors.
I love this topic! I was also embarrassed to not drive stick and I did something about a few years ago. At that time - and I think the number still holds - it was estimated that less than 5% of cars sold in the US are manuals. Its wholly different in other countries, but in the US the number is really low. I also confirmed that number with my sales guy - he checked his own sales records for the previous 3 years and it did indeed fall right in at 5% or so.
PRO TIP: I learned stick in a Ford Mustang 5.0 and you want to learn it in a high performance car. I know that sounds counter-intuitive but those cars have super high torque going right to the rear wheels. The net effect is that the clutch has a very well defined catch point because it's just so much power ready to go. You'll literally feel it and hear it. Compare that to learning it in a car with low HP & torque, the clutch is 10x harder to feel because it's not a lot of power overall, it will feel very "sensitive" to you starting out and you'll make a lot more mistakes.
Finally, you should also know that stick has a down side in performance cars. Most engines now are so fast and with so much horsepower that a manual transmission will never let you experience the full power of the car. It's getting so that you literally can't shift fast enough to keep up with the ability of the engine. If you've done something like Launch Control in a Porsche and do 0-60 in 3 seconds, you realize that there is no way you can ever do that in a manual so a lot of the potential goes wasted. That's all to say that for some lines of cars, it makes sense that the manuals have disappeared, the engines are just too good.
Learned to drive in a Miata. I will probably always own a Miata in my life.
First car at 16 was stick shift and I drove it all through college.
Best way to learn how to drive and much more exciting too (unless you’re in bumper-to-bumper traffic)
A real shame a lot of manufacturers are getting rid of stick shifts. Pretty sure Ferrari and Lamborghini almost completely stopped making them for new models. Could you imagine being able to afford a Lamborghini but too pussy to learn how to actually engage with the $200,000 car on an intimate level by learning stick? Consumer tastes I guess — looks like a lot of people spent too much time on the DCF and not enough on life
No, nor do I care to.
Yep currently daily a stick mazda3 sedan. Really valuable skill since I'm a car enthusiast. It's nice peace of mind that if someone offered, I would be able to drive most any car - even older performance vehicles. Before the 00s every fast car was manual.
I’m British so is the norm to learn to drive a manual, it’s very uncommon to have an automatic only license here
Yes. I learned when I was racing micro sprint cars when I was 14. No tachometer. Just had to listen for when the revs got too high and then shift with a switch.
Learned on a stick. Pretty fun to drive.
Quite interesting how different the US is to the UK/Europe on this.
I learned to drive on a manual in the UK which is the norm (90%+ driving tests here are taken on a manual), also very similar in mainland Europe I hear
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