OG Mini. So, yes, had a manual clutch. Now, 40-something years later I’m driving an automatic for the first time because they don’t make the car I wanted at the spec. I wanted in a manual.
1982 SAAB 900. No turbo, no sunroof. No frills. Still a fun car to drive. Drove it till the motor gave out just shy of 1,500,000 miles on the ODO
I didn’t learn to drive in a vehicle with a clutch, but I did learn to drive vehicles with clutches! I love manual transmission cars. Been fighting the urge to make a poor financial decision and scoop one up before they’re gone.
When I was 15 in the 90s, every adult in the family, and adult friends of the family, said “You’re 15? Let’s go drive for an hour or two!” I’m pretty sure that, legally, a parent was supposed to be with me, but I guess any random adult was close enough.
I just added up 14 different vehicles I “learned on,” including an old pickup with “three on the tree”, a Corvette, a 280z turbo, a 68 Chevelle, an International Scout. The rest were boring vehicles. If I remember correctly, 9 were manuals.
Suzuki Samurai FTW
Learned to drive on this bad boy:
Then my first car was this beauty:
It has hydrologic suspensions, it’s cool AF. Got it 10yo and 230000km and drove it until it died into a cloud of smoke 😢 RIP
I learned to drive in a big ass truck, but I did recently get my first manual transmission car. It’s not that hard to learn I don’t think.
I have my commercial driver’s license. Driving an 18 wheeler is an order of magnitude harder, but even that is not too hard once you know the constraining rules. I think it is harder to stay in a minimum width lane than it is to shift an 8 speed with 3 splitters and no synchromesh. The rev band is only around 2k RPM, and you only have around a 200 RPM window, with a 50 RPM sweet spot, where the gears will engage without grinding or shutting out the gate entirely. Cars are quite easy by comparison. Driving a tractor trailer, then getting into a regular manual car makes the car seem laughable. It really isn’t hard at all.
Oh, these “let’s get people to reveal their password reset question” Facebook campaigns again…
Mazda GLC
My first car was a '73 VW Super Beetle.
I learned on an automatic and didn’t know stick. Did that stop me from buying an old manual Mustang? Nope. I figured I had some practice with manual shifting in racing games (console), surely it couldn’t be that hard. I stalled plenty of times leaving the lot but once I got it going it was fine. It only really took a couple days of dropping clutch and stalling on hills before I had it down.
Edit- Dang pedantsExact same story for me. Learned on an automatic, but had ridden a dirt bike a few times and understood the concept. First time driving a stick was when I bought my first car and then had to learn fast as I drove it home. Worked out ok.
I told the car salesdude that I’d buy this car if he spent 15 minutes teaching me. Worked out pretty well!
Yep. Still have two stick cars. They’re not dead yet.
I don’t know if electric vehicles have one but other than them all cars have clutches, whether manual or automatic.
Wet vs dry… Emmmmm
Amazing shitpost.
People really went directly to the manual vs automatic debate without realizing it has nothing to do with that.
Flying over my head. what does it have to do with?
Evey car has a clutch, including automatic. It is so the engine can keep turning without the wheels spinning.
Basically, if your car has a neutral, you have a clutch.
That’s not quite correct, every ice car has a mechanism to disconnect the engine from the wheels.
Manuals typically use a clutch to archive this. For the longest time automatic transmissions haven’t though, instead they use a torque converter. Which also is a type of clutch obviously, but not what people usually refer to when they use the term clutch.
There also are automated manuals and dual clutch transmissions, but those are more modern…
Too lazy to find sources rn, but if anyone wants to know more I’ll provide some.
An automatic transmission also has many clutches inside to release or grab different parts of the planetary gear assembly.
But yes, not what people think of when they say “clutch.”
Cvt?
I guess it’s a CV clutch?
Cvts usually use a torque converter (which is a type of clutch but distinct from what you think of as a clutch when talking about a manual transmission).
Fluid dynamics in a turbine or torque multiplier with the stater. Turbines uses the fluid to spin up and they usually have a lockup clutch for cruising. Torque converters are usually smoother but don’t deliver the full power right away, which is why some prefer a manual. Double clutch trannies are another beast which I love on my vw. I would assume the cvt takes the place of the clutch in the torque converter?
Most people not in the US. We just call it ‘driving’
It’s slowly starting to become a lost art though, there’s definitely more and more automatics around, starting with all electric cars.
Automatics have clutches too, they are operated, as expected, automatic. A car without a clutch has just one gear.
The overwhelming majority of automatic transmissions made in the last 85 years have had torque converters, not automatically operated clutches (referring to the primary connection between motor and driveline, not torque converter lockup clutches or transmission clutch packs). Cars that use the automatic equivalent of a manual clutch pedal have really only been practically produced in the last 15 years in the form of dual wet clutch automatics.
It’s unnecessary to be pedantic. We seem to have a pretty common understanding that the clutch in this context commonly implies manual transmission, and the vast majority of people have no idea how an automatic/CVT of any kind works or what the internal parts are.
the vast majority of people have no idea how an automatic/CVT of any kind works or what the internal parts are.
So I explained automatic transmission has an automated clutch, but sorry for explaining that.
A car without a clutch could also just be a funny car. They don’t really have a clutch, it’s more a bullseye looking thing that drops in stages. Basically if you try to dump 3000+ horses into first gear metal tends to explode, so you dump multiple stages that just roast until you get speed. You still have gears, but it’s less of a clutch and more of a time delay friction welding system attached to the crankshaft.
Good
