Common password recovery question…
Chevy Chevette. This may have been one of the worst cars built, take minutes to get up to speed and over-rev cruising in the highway, but it was also a tank that lived through 6 people learning to drive a stick and probably close to two decades.
It was also really easy to work on, but
- when I replaced the springs I found them light enough to compress by hand
- when my brother replaced the clutch he said it’s the only car he saw where the transmission was light enough to hold one handed while replacing
Learned to drive manual on a 1981 BMW 320i. All of my cars are still manual to this day. 1999 Toyota Solara, 1988 Toyota Corolla GTS, 2003 Toyota MR2 Spyder and 2020 Hyundai Veloster N. But mostly I ride my bike, which is also a manual.
VW T3 with a 4 speed manual and a Passat with a 3 speed slush box.
I learned to drive on two cars because my parents were divorced: my Dad’s Ford Ranger (manual) and my Mom’s silly “talking” Chrysler Laser (it literally talked to you, felt weirdly futuristic see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voice_alert ). I never really had a problem with using a clutch, it was the lack of power steering on that truck that sucked. I made sure that I never bought a car without power steering after learning on that truck.
Chevy S-10. I think a 1999? Around that anyway.
Still miss that little truck. The clutch had two positions - on and off. It was a pain to drive but once I learned on it I could drive anything.
I still drive stick today.
As someone who learned driving using a manual transmission car, automatic transmission is much better for city driving, I hated having to be careful with the clutch in stop and go city traffic, my left leg would get so sore after a while, plus I’ve stalled the engine more than once by letting the clutch go too fast.
Yeah I finally went over to the dark side because of bostons horrendous stop and go traffic
Of course I’d use transit whenever I could. However I lived to the east and had to drive through Boston to get home from anywhere else. There were times when it took hours to drive just a couple miles: I couldn’t deal with manual transmission for that
1987 Golf, and I still drive a car with a clutch.
Learned with and still using stick.
I think it was a Renault Megane. Hopeless car. Left it outside in the cold one night. Every bit of wiring had shorted and if i turned on the wipers, the lights would flicker and the radio turned on.
Sounds like your car was possessed
That’s just French cars
I mean the only reason French cars are still made is to make Italian cars look good.
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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
Holy crap! My wife’s Solara has 368,000 miles on it and I thought that was a lot.
1.5 million???
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.
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.
I forget what the cat is even called, but it was an old Subaru hatchback. I wanna say GT? Maybe there’s a number… I dunno but it was a tiny lil thing.
Haven’t given one since then, though. And I didn’t do too well with it either, but I am not a car guy, and I don’t drive in crazy road situations that would make it useful.
I’m still glad I learned that way though, as my cars since then made more sense to me. At least until now, since I have a hybrid with a CVT.
Nissan vanette and ford focus. Don’t miss either of those and have an automatic now. I still drive a friend’s van from time to time which has a clutch, whoch is good so I don’t forget how to drive it. Although it still feels completely natural since I drove manual for 2 decades.




