Baby blue and three on the tree (3 gears with the shifter on the steering column). Straight in-line 6 cyl. Bought it for $50 and it ran!

That is why I can drive a stick.

A variety of cars in Driver Ed, none of which I remember, but the beetle was my "solo" car.

the amount of times I've had to come to drive a manual jeep or truck has been pretty amazing (and rather embarrassing for all those who didn't have a clue)

...do it if I need to.

The only thing I didn't like about a stick was when I had to stop on an uphill road - I always felt like I needed a third foot, so I could have one on the gas, one on the clutch, and one on the brake. I was always terrified that I was going to roll backwards, and especially disliked it if the car behind me would pull up to close. I would usually put the parking brake on if I had to stop
uphill."

to Denver before the traffic picked up, but my legs would already be so damned sore, that even pumping the brakes was painful.. Adding in the clutch was excruciating and took everything out of me to do so!

Manual transmissions still give you more of a "driving" experience, IMO, though in heavy traffic, ummm no--a rather intense nuisance. And, yeah, stop and go on the hills when you are just learning is a white knuckle experience.

I'm content to drive an automatic now, but still glad I learned to "drive a stick"...

...never a bad thing.

Even with many years experience, I never got comfortable with the hill thing. And, riding the clutch in heavy stop-and-go creeping traffic could be exhausting.

If I ever get my dream car, a Porsche 911, it would have to be a stick. Likely will never happen. And, I rather like sitting higher up off the road in my Hyundai Santa Fe.

I laugh today about how I bought the car first and then had to learn how to drive a stick. Ah, to be 18 and clueless again. Pulled up to a gas station and someone had to tell me the tank was in the front. All I cared about was how cheap it was to run and putting the cute little, hippie flower decals on it.

I've never driven a stick again, but am so glad I learned how in case someday when I'm 80 I need to do that

I remember being struck in a crosswalk by a 1966 Plymouth Valiant wagon looking exactly like that one, driven by a young man who then sped off.

You have some explaining to do, ChubbyStar!

It was yellow with a white top.

Same color scheme. Those were great cars, easy and fun to drive. I didn't learn to drive a stick shift until many years later, when I bought a 1970 VW Beetle just for fun.

We had that car from my childhood until I went to college.

There were a lot of firsts for me with that car!

That car ran trouble free until my younger sister crashed it in 1985. Such a sad ending for Prince Valiant.

Dad bought it as the family car. Brother and I took turns driving when we used it for the move from Denver to Albuquerque. Not even a little bit sexy, but excellent training for driving a stick shift.





.

He cut everything off of it except the hood and frame. No doors, no roof, no fenders. We used a garden hose for a seat belt. He cut the wheel rims in half and then welded the inside of rims he had cut the ends off to make wide tires.

Me and my two brothers would drive that thing every weekend on Pensacola's Beach from US 98 to Ft. Pickens. No adults, they were busy fishing and drinking. We camped at the end of Ft. Pickens on the beach. I was 8-9 years old at the time.

I lived an interesting childhood....

Looked much like this '77 ...

Four speed manual. It had no power at all and you had to plug it in when the weather got cold or it wouldn't start. Manual choke too. But it was fun to drive.

I learned to drive a car by driving it around the large oak trees in our front yard on the farm. Now I already knew how to drive farm trucks but that was my first "car". It was a stick shift and I loved shifting!!! When my brother got home he said I could shift that car better than he could. Loved loved that little car! It is true what they say if you want a theft proof car get a standard trans anyone under 30 can't drive it away. .

with Suicide Doors. Flat head Stick shift with mechanical brakes.

Might be a year or two off in the estimate.

That Aspen lasted until my parents moved back to California in 1987. It seemed like a long time to own a car back then.

My 2002 Cavalier is almost 17 years old. That is the car my daughters learned to drive with.

I don't know how huge the engine was, but it seemed that you didn't even have to touch the gas pedal and you were already going 30 mph.

Of course, we got to counter that with a jack-rabbity Datsun B-210, also sold by the local Olds dealer, for people who wanted to learn a stick shift (I drove that a couple of times, but it was ridiculously hard to engage that thing into first gear without taking a few hops).

I don't know why they put 15-year olds in those behemoth cars for drivers' ed, but I think we learned to handle cars pretty well.

The wagon was a behemoth. I learned to parallel park it! I can now parallel park any vehicle anywhere!

The Porsche 912E was a beauty! It was Dad’s commuter car. We lived on a mountain and it was a blast to drive it up and down the winding, mountain roads (including super steep, 180 degree switchbacks!)

53 Chevy Bel Air in driver's ed. Sheesh, am I THAT old?

Ended up breaking the end knob off when shifting when my dad was teaching me how to drive. It was a great little car though. My parents left the cold in upstate New York for parts unknown in warmer weather. Sold everything we owned and started South. Traveled the East coast stopping all along the way, to Florida, and then headed West. My dad stopped in Arizona and did not want to go anywhere else. He loved the heat. We left NY with 2 vehicles and a tent camper and ended up in Arizona in June. I thought he was CRAZY. Spent the entire summer in the middle of the desert in a tent camper at KOA while he interviewed for jobs. Had the best tan of my life as you could do nothing but lay by the pool and get in and out of the water to stay cool. We called our Valient the White Wonder because it was a little white car and we did not know if it would make it through the mountainsl. We just kept saying "Come on White Wonder, you can do it." but it chugged on until we got here. It lasted about another year after that until it had enough.

It was made the year I was born. It always felt like I was driving a boat. I know my dad bought it for me because he wanted it. All it’s life it had been garage kept, winterized and put in storage every Dec-Mar, and had custom clear plastic seat covers installed over the original upholstery. If you stepped on the gas, you could watch the gas gauge go down. I hated it!

Dad sold it to a neighbor who wrapped it around a tree after hitting a brick wall a week later.

I got a brown Pontiac Ventura after that.

My Dad was the second owner in '69 so I have no idea about the details.

My first ownership car was a VW Beetle. When I bought it was when I learned to drive a stick shift, with Dad at my side. I had to take him with me because I knew nothing about cars and he co-signed the loan. I eventually learned to change the oil and where the battery was hidden ( under the back seat).

Parallel parking it for my driver's license test was a BITCH!

A huge boat of an auto, stick shift; terrible to parallel park.

but I really learned to drive in a '71 VW Beetle. Clementine orange with a black interior. And a sun roof.

tooling around my dad's citrus orchard. His was blue



For real driving on roads, I learned to drive a '65 Oldsmobile F-85 station wagon. Ours was tan.

For both automatic and manual learning. I could drive before I was legally allowed to drive.

There was NOTHING deluxe about it unless you count the heater, but Boy Howdy, the three-on-the-tree was slick.

My uncle gave me my first driving lesson before I even had a learner's permit.
This was in San Francisco, the City of Hills, and at the signal at the top of one of them, I accidentally backed into the car behind us.
[The driving lesson ended at that point]

that I only remember that it was light blue. And of course was a standard transmission.

I have only ever owned stick shifts. You are in far much more control than in an automatic, especially if you never ever use any forward gear but drive. I'm astonished at how most drivers don't ever downshift for varying conditions in an automatic.

My two most recent cars were a 2004 Honda Civic I drove from 2006 until this past September. Now I have a Fit. The Hondas have incredibly light clutches. Also, my fit very noticeably does NOT drift backward when on a hill and I move my foot from clutch to accelerator.

Driving a stick really does force you to pay much more attention to the act of driving. And while I do understand why many people would prefer an automatic, I think everyone should learn how to drive a manual transmissioin.

53 Chevy pick up 3 on the column.

But what a radio! I can still hear "How Much Is That Doggie In the Window" by Patti Page and "Rags To Riches" by Tony Bennett blasting out. Oh, and Ernest Tubb on WSM.

I just found out everyone's "password hint"



Bookmarking !

Learning to parallel park was a nightmare but I nailed it first time on the test. The examiner was impressed.

and I don't remember the old pickup model that I learned to drive stick shift with but it was sometime in the late 50s