Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Manual Transmission car sales now outnumbered by electric cars

Thats like saying electric cars are now out selling covered wagons.

I have a 2015 Tacoma with a manual transmission. Yes, it was hard to find. Glad I went to the trouble of searching.

Factory installed theft and appliance moving deterrent.

My daily driver is a 98 BMW M3 sedan with a 5 Spd manual.
I enjoy the hell out of it.

with a few exceptions my daily drive was a stick for my entire adult life, that ended in 2016 and i don't miss it

would still be fun as a second car

Was picking up an insanely prived part at the Toyota dealership in Bozeman the other day.

Walked through the floor and there were 3 Supras. All of them were around ~$60k.

Looked inside that little 2-seater sporty shoebox and it was an auto.

I shared this with my wife and asked her rhetorically, "who would buy a sports car like that with a manual tranny?"

Snowflakes will continue to imbibe whatever purple drank koolaid their low IQ leaders feed them.

Beyond the skill it takes to employ one's left foot in the management of one's car, and the lack thereof in most of today's society, consider vintage machines with unsynchronized gear boxes. Not many of us around anymore who out of necessity mastered the art of double clutching and matching revs/gears/road speed. You learned to think about what the car was doing, and think ahead to what happened next. The British machines I drove as my daily drivers in the 70's and 80's were all 50's-60's vintage things. Lord love the Moss gearbox fitted to the clapped out '59 Jaguar XK-150 I drove in college- straight cut gears and syncros only for third and fourth gear, but it did have electric-actuated overdrive. (Not to mention it's carbureted twin-cam 6cyl engine as an endearing feature.) Nary a college kid today who could hop behind the wheel of that elegant beast and maneuver it out of a parking lot- clutch be damned, they wouldn't know what the choke was for or how to start a recalcitrant cold analog based engine.

gnoahhh, I'd bet most college students couldn't get my '68 SS Camaro 4-speed out of the parking lot. And that's a helluva lot easier than a '59 Jag.

That reminds me, one of my early jobs as a teenager used old Army Mules for building trails and other maintenance. I had a ball on those things but can't imagine most modern-day teens even trying to drive one of those. Makes me a little nostalgiac...maybe I should try to find one for around the place....

As my Tacoma stays muddy and nasty most of the time, I bought a car for a daily. I enjoy a manual, so I found a late model Accord Turbo with the 6spd. It's fairly fun for a FWD sedan. My wife doesn't like driving it though.

I have a 2012 Audi S4--Quattro with a supercharged V6--with a manual. It is such a hoot on a canyon road. I figure that it is the last driver's car I'll ever have. No lane departure warnings or smart cruise control or any of that. It's all up to you.

Sticks are good. Lost track of the miles I covered with them. Probably something in the 750k range.

doesn't it seem like all automatic transmissions are huge pieces of schit nowadays?

My wifes car has a 7 speed, I've heard of 9 speed in some cars, those CVTs are all crap. I have a 5 speed now that seems pretty solid but seems like transmissions were rock solid in the late 70's thru the mid 90's

A guy in the business told me they went to [bleep] when they stopped using whale oil -- no idea if that has any bearing or not, you know how those guys all like to say "back in my day".....

that said, I don't ever want a stick again. I basically want to drive a lazy boy recliner around. A 1 hour traffic jam on the interstate is all I need to never want a stick again.

Two of our three vehicles are manual transmission. I consider the manual transmission a good anti theft deterrent. I had an 18 year old kid helping me in the woods lasts year using our two manual shift (using a rocker button with no clutch) ATVs. He mentioned that he had a tough time climbing a hill and I asked when what gear he was in - he said third (I was in 1st). I had to sit down and explain gearing to him.

You sure have a way with words

Wish my truck was a manual, not avaliable.

That's ok, They can't parallel park either and it isn't a requirement for a drivers license. States that have ditched the skill include Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming.

No, it can't. Unless it is specifically set up to offer manual shifting, the manual shifting feature is largely window dressing. Shifts are lethargic, when they happen at all, and, by the time the shift takes place, the need for it has passed. Even in a car with the so-called "sport mode", shifts occur much more slowly than I would do with a manual transmission. We had one car (a Mazda 626) which had a 5 speed. Mazda, in their wisdom, put a restrictor valve in the hydraulic cylinder so the clutch would engage more gradually. The result was that you could not shift quickly. I had to deliberately wait , maybe a half second, for the clutch to engage. This was especially so when temperatures were on the cold side. A driver who is used to a manual transmission wants to whole system to respond as guickly as possible. In most modern cars, throttle response is also sluggish which makes smooth, quick, shifting more difficult. GD

Add Maryland to that list.

A buddy is dangling his 2012 Audi TT, manual trans, in front of me. Low low mileage absolutely pristine, for a steal. Sorely tempted- may just hit the "buy it now" button. The car is a screamer- like driving something that would've outrun all of the entrants in an early 60's running of LeMans. (Not that it's faster. Brakes are light years better. Therein lies the true speed potential/applicability of any vehicle.)