Apparently automatics do better on EPA tests, but when I switched from a ’95 automatic 2.5l Subaru Legacy wagon to a ’97 manual 2.5l Subaru Legacy wagon my city, highway, and average fuel use all improved by about 1 l/100km, or about 10%. On the open road it’s using a hair under 8 l/100km (29.5 mpg in US terms, 35.3 mpg UK).
Even though it has 10 gears (5 sp + hi/lo) I mostly only use three of them (1&3&5), or two in heavy start/stop traffic (2&4).
I have never understood the perverse affection some drivers have for mucking about with archaic monstrosities of the automotive Paleozoic like clutch pedals and manual gear shifters. If I was to wax equally poetic about the manly joys of cranking up my faithful iron steed using arm muscle power alone I would – quite correctly – be regarded a proper lunatic. Auto makers having long since refined away all other major crudities of the Otto Benz-Henry Ford era horseless carriages, I fail to see the basis for romanticizing this one last anachronistic holdover from the “Get a horse!” era.
Guys who muck about with archaic monstrosities are fixing them themselves.
It’s akin to the pleasure of playing a musical instrument: you’ve mastered a skill that draws pleasure from the union of man and finely crafted machine, whether it’s a seamless solo run through the A minor pentatonic with a couple of wailing bends overdriving the tubes into creamy distortion; or smoothly negotiating a descending decreasing radius turn, the shift lever snicking into place with no synchro lag via a perfectly executed double clutch 4-2 downshift, staying exactly on the friction circle the whole time.
Ain’t the dopamine neurotransmitter circuit great?!
Yes.
Some people think that not just the primary, but only purpose of cars is to covey themselves from one point to another. These are the people who have never actually experienced driving a car, and never will, and will never know the joy to be derived therefrom.
“I have never understood the perverse affection some drivers have for mucking about with archaic monstrosities of the automotive Paleozoic like clutch pedals and manual gear shifters. ”
For me it’s the precise control of when to trade torque for rpm when trying to maneuver over icy and/or roads from a dead stop. With automatics you have zip control over when it shifts. With a Manual I can get out of first the instant the car starts to roll and avoid slipping.
I first learned to drive on an automatic, but when it came time to buy my second car, I had always wanted a VW Bug so I bought one and learned to drive a stick. The less said about that particular car the better, but every car I have bought since then has had a manual transmission.
I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve read that manuals are less likely to get stolen than automatics, for the simple reason that many car thieves don’t know how to drive a stick.
I prefer to crank the windows by hand, too. To my cynical mind, things like power windows, seats, and door locks are just more things that can break down and cost me money.
I drove manual transmission vehicles for 20 years before bad knees and heavy traffic convinced me to switch. Manual transmissions give drivers a measure of control that you can’t get from automatics, although things like traction control are making thing better. It’s like when I was doing a lot of photography. Manual exposure control and focusing lets you be more of an artist instead of just someone taking snapshots.
The Manual grants additional power when you precisely need it, if you know how to get it, whereas the automatics required you to Stomp and Tickle the accelerator like a frigid girl to get a kiss, when what you really prefer the finesse of coaxing her into believing it was her idea to begin with.
I blew the engine on my 2002 Jeep TJ last year, and it’s been collecting dust for a year. A month ago I bought a 1997 Jeep TJ, which itself was missing little things like a roof. And doors. And an ignition key cylinder. I’m a little over half done building Frankenjeep, and by the time I’m done I will know every bolt and wire and the only computers in the machine will be the ones that I build and install and program myself. I won’t have to worry about someone taking over my car via OnStar, nor shelling out large to mechanics to hook my car up to their proprietary computer diagnostic machine. And fifty years hence, if they won’t let me take the Jeep on the road if there isn’t a computer driving it, I can put ‘er into four wheel drive and drive in the ditch.
Apparently automatics do better on EPA tests, but when I switched from a ’95 automatic 2.5l Subaru Legacy wagon to a ’97 manual 2.5l Subaru Legacy wagon my city, highway, and average fuel use all improved by about 1 l/100km, or about 10%. On the open road it’s using a hair under 8 l/100km (29.5 mpg in US terms, 35.3 mpg UK).
Even though it has 10 gears (5 sp + hi/lo) I mostly only use three of them (1&3&5), or two in heavy start/stop traffic (2&4).
I have never understood the perverse affection some drivers have for mucking about with archaic monstrosities of the automotive Paleozoic like clutch pedals and manual gear shifters. If I was to wax equally poetic about the manly joys of cranking up my faithful iron steed using arm muscle power alone I would – quite correctly – be regarded a proper lunatic. Auto makers having long since refined away all other major crudities of the Otto Benz-Henry Ford era horseless carriages, I fail to see the basis for romanticizing this one last anachronistic holdover from the “Get a horse!” era.
Guys who muck about with archaic monstrosities are fixing them themselves.
It’s akin to the pleasure of playing a musical instrument: you’ve mastered a skill that draws pleasure from the union of man and finely crafted machine, whether it’s a seamless solo run through the A minor pentatonic with a couple of wailing bends overdriving the tubes into creamy distortion; or smoothly negotiating a descending decreasing radius turn, the shift lever snicking into place with no synchro lag via a perfectly executed double clutch 4-2 downshift, staying exactly on the friction circle the whole time.
Ain’t the dopamine neurotransmitter circuit great?!
Yes.
Some people think that not just the primary, but only purpose of cars is to covey themselves from one point to another. These are the people who have never actually experienced driving a car, and never will, and will never know the joy to be derived therefrom.
“I have never understood the perverse affection some drivers have for mucking about with archaic monstrosities of the automotive Paleozoic like clutch pedals and manual gear shifters. ”
For me it’s the precise control of when to trade torque for rpm when trying to maneuver over icy and/or roads from a dead stop. With automatics you have zip control over when it shifts. With a Manual I can get out of first the instant the car starts to roll and avoid slipping.
I first learned to drive on an automatic, but when it came time to buy my second car, I had always wanted a VW Bug so I bought one and learned to drive a stick. The less said about that particular car the better, but every car I have bought since then has had a manual transmission.
I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve read that manuals are less likely to get stolen than automatics, for the simple reason that many car thieves don’t know how to drive a stick.
I prefer to crank the windows by hand, too. To my cynical mind, things like power windows, seats, and door locks are just more things that can break down and cost me money.
I drove manual transmission vehicles for 20 years before bad knees and heavy traffic convinced me to switch. Manual transmissions give drivers a measure of control that you can’t get from automatics, although things like traction control are making thing better. It’s like when I was doing a lot of photography. Manual exposure control and focusing lets you be more of an artist instead of just someone taking snapshots.
The Manual grants additional power when you precisely need it, if you know how to get it, whereas the automatics required you to Stomp and Tickle the accelerator like a frigid girl to get a kiss, when what you really prefer the finesse of coaxing her into believing it was her idea to begin with.
I blew the engine on my 2002 Jeep TJ last year, and it’s been collecting dust for a year. A month ago I bought a 1997 Jeep TJ, which itself was missing little things like a roof. And doors. And an ignition key cylinder. I’m a little over half done building Frankenjeep, and by the time I’m done I will know every bolt and wire and the only computers in the machine will be the ones that I build and install and program myself. I won’t have to worry about someone taking over my car via OnStar, nor shelling out large to mechanics to hook my car up to their proprietary computer diagnostic machine. And fifty years hence, if they won’t let me take the Jeep on the road if there isn’t a computer driving it, I can put ‘er into four wheel drive and drive in the ditch.