Pluggers by Rick McKee for March 01, 2020

Nope. You gotta learn to drive this rattley a— ol’ Ford first even though you may never drive a stick again.

Granddaughter’s first car my old stick-shift sedan. Three generations, quarter of million miles.

My dad did something unusual for him. He traded in his ’64 Dodge for a ’65 automatic Dodge just to avoid having to teach me the stick. I learned on a Chevy van in ’71.

20 years and I still don’t have my first driving license

My late brother (R.I.P.) never did like cars with stick shifts; it was always automatic.

Learned how to shift on a Farmall tractor before I was ten. Much easier than the “three on the tree” 69 F100 my Dad had.

Driving a stick is like going to the bathroom … first step , second step , ect. A little work will not hurt you ! ;-)

Two of my sons gave me some extra work while learning to drive a stick – One tore up a motor mount, and the other toasted the clutch and pressure plate.

i taught my daughter and son to drive a stick. what if they got out somewhere and had to drive one?

A stick shift is a pretty good theft protection device.

I can do floor and column. Miss my Cavalier on the floor. Greatest car I ever had.

The bigger challenge was the art of parallel parking.

My favorite car has three pedals on the floor, two levers on the steering column and two levers coming out of the floor. (Model T) Interesting learning process.

Decades ago, I tried teaching my youngest sister to drive a manual, cost me a clutch. Years later, I warned hew new husband. He was grateful as his Alfa Romeo had a stick.

I learned to drive on an automatic and then discovered how hard it is to ‘relearn’ to drive using a stick (what we could afford when first married). Tried to get my kids to learn using the stick but there wasn’t one available in the school’s driver’s ed. My oldest’s first job required him to drive a stick-shift truck—he had to learn in a hurry. One of the first times he every told me “you were right, mom.” It’s something about learning habits — much easier to learn the more intricate pattern first and then simplify than the other way around. Easier to ‘take away’ a step, than to add one (at the right place).

A buddy taught me how to drive a stick shift in his ’59 Plymouth in exchange for letting him try out my ’60 Desoto with the push-button Torqueflite…in 1984.

I learned to drive clutch n’ gearbox on a couple of Oliver tractors and a ’49 Chevy flatbed farm truck by age 10. Good life skills, ’cause 56 years and a million miles later the last stick shift I drove before retiring was a Kenworth T800 with an Eaton Fuller transmission and 13 gears plus overdrive.

I made all three of my daughters learn to drive a stick before they could use the car with the automatic in it. Interestingly, the first car they each purchased was a stick.

Love the manual transmissions, even if the battery was dead you could still drive the thing after a quick push. Automatics you are stuck unless you can find someone to give you a jump.

I guess I was a plugger in my 30’s and 40’s. (30’s with son and 40’s with daughter.)

Good to know how.. even better if you had to learn before synchronized transmissions became standard.

When you learn to drive standard with a double clutch ’25 Ford, everything else is cake.

I know how to drive a stick, but even after a year of driving with one I still had a hard time with hills and dealing with first gear. I’ll stick with my automatics, thank you!

On a side note, since so many youth and young adults don’t know how to drive with a stick, a car with a stick is unlikely to be stolen!

Improve co-ordination……

I just bought a New Mustang with a stick, and my 26 year old daughter just got a Subaru Legacy with a stick, she made me proud.

Learned on a 60 Rambler American, three on the tree!

I taught my oldest boy to drive stick — the rest of the brood (5 more!) — stuck with automatic!

I taught our daughter how to drive a stick shift and, in fact, we bought her an 82 VW Rabbit convertible which was stick shift. One summer she had a job at a resort in Colorado and got to drive and park Porsches and Ferraris because she was the only kid who could drive a stick shift. Yet another valuable life skill.

Mine was a Model A Ford.

All I have ever owned has been manuals

I was determined when I was a teen to not learn how to drive a stick shift. If I did, I was condemned to drive my dad’s 4 on the column pickup truck instead of Mom’s Mercedes. Then I went to work for a messenger service that only had stick shift cars. I learned in a very big hurry. And guess what? I drove that pickup until I could buy my own car.

I didn’t have a lot of choice when I got my truck last year. A good price on a low mileage, nearly new car that was an automatic, or pay more for a higher mileage car that was a manual.

I wouldn’t trade, but I miss the 5 on the floor.

My mom taught my sister and I how to drive a stick in a 67 VW camper. She made sure we could stop and start on a hill without rolling backwards, could parallel park, could pop the clutch to get it started, drive on snow/pull out of spin, all before we went to take our driver’s test. I got the opportunity to drive all kinds of stick shifts, 3, 4, 5 speeds, columns, dash, floor. There were several times that I was asked to go places because I was the only one who could drive one of the vehicles that was needed (my husband did re-enactments and I was the only one available to drive the artillery van that didn’t have 2nd gear – I had no problem going from 1st to 3rd).