Is the stick shift going away?

 Posted by on 2 March 2010  Modern Life
Mar 022010
 

I love my standard transmission car — even if it means Amy can never drive it. I love the feeling of actually doing something when I drive, rather than just steering. I love the extra control that even a not-so-great shifter like me can achieve with the clutch pedal.

And, frankly, it looks cool and it sounds cool. Standard transmissions are where it’s at.

But, they’re also slowly going extinct. Upwards of 90% of new vehicles have automatic transmissions. Auto writer Kirk Seaman at AOL Autos offers up a column in their honour that sometimes reads like a eulogy:

For the serious driver, piloting a car with a manual transmission is a badge of honor. Having control over your ride carries an appeal that may well go back to the time when man first rode astride a horse. That sort of intimate control over your steed is heady stuff, and a feeling not easily conceded. The conviction that the driver knows best also comes into play: an automatic transmission can’t see that just down the road is a decreasing radius turn that’s going to require you to downshift a gear or two so that you can launch yourself smartly out of the turn.

Then there is the pride one takes in a perfectly timed two-three upshift, wringing it out to the redline and listening to the symphony of pumping pistons and whirring camshafts, or perhaps mastering the black art of heel-and-toe shifting and precisely matching revs on a downshift as you drift into a corner.

Perhaps it is because, in a world that seems increasingly out of control, in the driver’s seat you are in complete control, and with a manual transmission and an open road to the horizon, that is as much as we can hope for these days.

Yes, I think I’ll stick with my standard for a few more years. Plus, they’re cheaper!

Grant Hamilton

  • http://prairieknitwit.blogspot.com Jennifer

    I miss driving a standard. My dad made me learn to drive a standard transmission before getting behind the wheel of an automatic. In high school, my good friend and I made it our mission to make sure the girls there also knew how to drive standard transmissions–we would do laps around the school in her little Toyota truck torturing it’s clutch with our classmates. We wanted to know our friends would be safe to drive themselves home if stuck at a party in the sticks with their drunk boyfriends, no matter what they were driving. My first car purchase was Mazda Protege with a standard transmission. I miss that little car!
    Now that I have three kids, I am in minivan land. Minivans are all automatics.

  • Colin

    If manual transmissions go extinct, how will people learn to drive motorcycles?

  • Teresa

    I learned how to drive a “stick” because of being stuck out in the boonies with an inebriated boyfriend(now my hubs for 23 yrs) I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only one put into them situations lol. Because that is what I learned on my first car was a stick an 1979 old burnt orange Chevy chevette. I was on top of the world to own that car even though it was as ugly as it was lol. I can assure you even for a “girly girl” I was very proud of my shifting abilities, as someone posted above a perfectly timed two three up shift and the cool sounding three two downshift going around a corner. Then there is the reliability that an automatic doesn’t offer that a stick can offer. The dead battery car wont start fix, ((even if you are alone you can roll out of a parking spot)) or just a small push from a friendly passerby pop that clutch and you got a running car again. I live in Michigan we have very bad weather in the winter and the roads get treacherous. The control is second to none when you drive a stick you can down shift to slow down even when your brakes and tires are useless on ice.
    I do not own a manual unfortunately anymore they don’t seem to offer them in mid size cars that I like to drive. Thanks for bringing this up gave me a moment to reminisce, heh you never know my 40th bday is this year maybe I feel a mid life crisis coming on that only a little sports coupe manual of course can fix (or is that reserved for only guys lol).

  • http://patrickjohanneson.com/ Pat J

    Over here, standard transmissions may be the minority; but watching Top Gear, from Britain, makes it sound like automatics are the exception across the pond.