Saturday, April 25, 2020
Driving a stick
I'm now about the only person I know who has a car with a stick shift (IPLawGuy used to have one, but then he got a Mazda CX-15, the largest of all SUVs, which did not come with one). I love driving with a manual transmission, but it looks like I am a member of a quickly shrinking group.
Comments:
<< Home
All the cars I've ever owed, including a couple of real stinkers, all had manual transmissions. Currently, my Mazdaspeed 3 has six speeds forward and one reverse. Very sweet!
I set up my new record player last night and texted my brother-in-law: listening to records is like driving a stick. I love doing things where you actually have to do something. Driving a stick is the best.
You let me drive yours once, and I was hooked. Great little car, probably not the best for Minnesota winters though.
I feel like this is an appropriate audience for a brief story about one of my heroes. We were in Mexico (Cancun city). We took a taxi. The drive was so smooth that I thought, "Huh. I guess taxis are automatic in Mexico. I guess that makes sense." Then I peeked between the front seats . . . El Conductor was sliding between the gears like they were a hot knife through butter.
John and I both own stick shift and love them. He's more of that purist described, a real car guy. I just like the feeling of always driving with all four limbs at once. Once we stayed at a pretty nice hotel in Austin that only had valet parking, but "the guy who can operate a manual" wasn't there, so we had to park our own car.
5 years ago, my wife intentionally chose to get a Ford Focus because she could get a manual transmission in any trim level. Turned out we got lucky because Ford settled a big lawsuit because of their faulty automatic transmissions in those cars, but after 65K miles we’ve had no trouble with her 5-speed. Enjoying driving her car caused me to get a car with a manual when my time to change cars came.
Post a Comment
<< Home
