What is this automotive blasphemy?

Even if it isn't any kind of preformance car there's nothing like driving a stick. My 50 Chevy 3/4 ton truck is not what you would call fast but with the original 4 speed transmition it's a blast to drive

My 'Tin Tent' is totally manual, requiring written requests to change gear, and a letter from both Great Grand parents if reverse is required ..... releasing the hand brake (parking brake) is easier if one leaves the driver's seat and climbs outside !!

There are slick manual transmissions that require only a little more than a thought to shift (even if slower than a modern automatic or dual clutch) and there are manuals that not only require letters from great grandparents but near divine intervention in order to make a run through the gears. And there are few transmissions/shift levers that leave you with the desire to meet the designer/engineer in a dark alley with a blunt instrument. Even if not as hard to shift if you forget and have your fingers over the front of the shift you will have imprints of the dash in your knuckles.

Granted some of these were truck transmissions.

One of the manual transmissions I don't miss, are the three-on-the-tree types (manual column shift).

I had a '63 Nova with one and I squared off against a '62 Falcon on day, at the light. When it went green, we launched and as I was shifting into the next gear, the knob came loose and I punched the windsheild...didn't break the glass, but my hand was pretty much out of commission for a while.

I remember some of the trucks we drove in the air force, civilian type semis, no sychomesh in any gear, you had to double clutch on every shift, up or down. If you messed up the shift on the first try, you were usually screwed. Brakes we'ren't good enough without downshifting to slow down with a load.

And that load was sometimes 20-30 unfused 750 lb bombs or napalm.

Lucky I had already learned how to double clutch fairly well in a old Ford truck before I was 16.

But because I could drive the big trucks, I usually got stuck with transporting the big loads to the flight line.

Bobbysocks and Old Wizard, isn't that something like a bump shifter?

Yep, the 'Tin Tent', being of French origin, was originally designed with a column shift. When built for the UK market, changing to right-hand drive, the gear shift was moved to the floor.
This involves dance moves that both Fred Astaire and John Travolta would be proud of, trying to get the left foot on or off the clutch pedal without either fouling the steering column, or trapping the edge of the foot beneath the clutch pedal and the column.
Engaging 1st gear, without first remembering to turn the hand, results in jamming one's fingers into the dash board (worse for me, having a stiff left hand), causing involuntary release of the gear lever, and, of course, a lack of an engaged gear, some pain, and a string of rather vulgar exclamations.
Mess-up a gear change, and one is left wondering which gear (if any) has been engaged, as well as wondering which gear should have been engaged, whilst at the same time attempting to take the relevant action to ensure that a gear - any gear - is finally selected in order to prevent the 10 ton wagon behind running over the top of you, or enabling one to successfully negotiate the tight turn ahead without becoming part of the scenery.
Certainly a more efficient method of ensuring driver awareness, and preventing the possibility of falling asleep at the wheel, than some more modern vehicles, with what almost equates to 'automatic pilot ' !!!

Oh, and as the cab is rather high, and lacks any form of step or grab handle, it's essential to carry a folding, plastic step, attached to the door handle with a length of para cord, in order to board and de-bus !!!
(the para cord is used to haul the step aboard, placing it alongside the driver's seat !)

Then on a wee bit of a side note, what is it with today's car names, like: Daihatsu Naked; Honda Life Dunk; Honda That's; Isuzu GIGA 20 Light Dump and Mysterious Utility; Mazda Bongo; Mitsubishi Delica Space Gear and Pistachio; Nissan Fairlady Z and Prairie Joy; Rickman Space Ranger; Rinspeed X-Dream; Suzuki Cappucino; Toyota Deliboy and Toyopet; Volkswagen Thing and Volugrafo Bimbo.

One does worry at times....

Visit Japan to find out, names are part of their humour like the general store chain "Fresh Fanny" I used to drink in a bar called the "Joy Space Java" the name was the most exotic thing about it, just a room with music.

There's a women's clothing store where my parents live, called Fanny!

Last week swapped my lovely Merc CLK automatic beautiful motor smooth grunty and comfortable enough to drive to the other end of the country realise you forgot your toothbrush and drive home to get it. Unfortunately it was a gas guzzler and it needed four new tyres so rather than sell a kidney to pay for fuel and tyres I swapped it for a Ford Focus 1.6 turbo diesel manual. I stalled it in the sales lot I stalled it at the first second thrid and fifth traffic lights. Trying to get used to using two feet again I hit the brake with my left foot and a car behind me nearly ended up on the back seat. I have almost got used to a clutch again after a week but still occasionally hop hop hop hop down the road. Brilliant m.p.g though I filled it up last week 450 miles and the needle is just on the 1/3 mark, 50 miles per gallon sure does beat 16 miles per gallon.

Dont take it to heart FM I used to get a lot of hire cars and the easiest to stall was the VW Golf tdGTi, being a diesel, stalling it was like standing on the break.

pbehn said:

Dont take it to heart FM I used to get a lot of hire cars and the easiest to stall was the VW Golf tdGTi, being a diesel, stalling it was like standing on the break.

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Its a while since I drove a diesel car and they arent like the diesels I remember driving. It doesnt clatter, doesnt blow smoke, doesnt like being driven much below 1500 rpm but when it gets going it can rev quite respectably up to 5,000 and the 6 speed box is very relaxing for motorway driving.

I used to have a Sherpa Van with a Perkins diesel and that was a proper diesel lump it clattered, thumped and pulled any load you could fit in the back. If you revved it past about 2,500rpm it sounded like you would be carrying bits of engine home in a bucket.

I have had three cars with manual shift capable automatics, 2006 Sonata (loved that car), 2009 Genesis (great car for the money), and 2013 Camaro with head up display (HUD)(fun driving, powerful, go-cart). The Hyundais both had the forward and back manual shifter, the Camaro has the paddle levers. My opinion is that, in the Hyundais, I often did not know what gear I was in. In the Camaro, the gear selected was displayed in the HUD, but I often, in sharper turns, did not have my hands in good position for for depressing the paddles and I don't like it. If I had my druthers, I would select the Hyundai gear shift system with a HUD showing gear selected. A note: I have noticed that the new Genesis uses paddles, .

davparlr said:

...but I often, in sharper turns, did not have my hands in good position for for depressing the paddles and I don't like it...

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That's an excellent point and I agree.

In a highway setting or a road-course, paddle shifters may be convenient, but on a canyon or mountain road, the degree to which the steering wheel is turning, the paddles are often not accessible and could actually be more of a liability to the driver than an asset.

Well we on on this technology move forward. Diesel is dead in North America. I work for VW and I for one am glad. Not glad about 747 retirements on the other hand

Humans, it seems, have never mastered the ability to make a motor vehicle move without hitting something or someone:

Ohio City, Ohio claims the first accident involving a gasoline-powered auto. In 1891, engineer James Lambert was driving one of his inventions, an early gasoline-powered buggy. The buggy hit a tree root sticking out of the ground. Lambert lost control and the vehicle swerved and crashed into a hitching post.

In 1896, Bridget Driscoll stepped off of a London curb and was struck and killed by a gas-powered car driven by Arthur Edsall. At a blistering speed of four miles per hour, neither Edsall nor Driscoll were able to avoid the collision. That same year, a bicyclist was killed by an automobile in New York City.

The first pedestrian death in the U.S. occurred on September 13, 1899. Henry Bliss, was either disembarking from a New York City streetcar or helping a woman step out when he was struck by an electrically-powered taxi cab. He died from injuries to his head and chest the next morning.

IMHO it is a very simple. The majority of drivers are, either incapable, stupid, distracted, impaired, aggressive, over confident, etc. Thus, in the name of profits, the auto maker needs to sell as many vehicles as possible to as many people as possible despite their deficiencies. Therefore, in general terms, cars have to be made smarter and more capable than their potential driver

Let's back up for a second. Growing up Dad had a 1913 Model-T Ford Touring car. Since it had a manual hand-crank starter you had to have a pretty decent amount of upper body strength JUST to start the thing and if not done correctly, the hand crank had a nasty habit of rotating backwards smacking the driver in the forearm breaking the bones. There were no hydraulics thus everything from brakes to steering was by brute force. There were no heaters, defrosters, or wipers. Along with the price the potential buyer pool was small.

To make their vehicles appeal to a larger pool of buyers, especially women, such deficiencies had to be corrected.

Our first "family" car was a 1949 Dodge. It was a tank on wheels and Mom never could manage the manual shifting, manual steering (especially when stopped), and manual brakes. She didn't drive until Dad bought a 1953 Chevrolet with an automatic transmission.

In today's electronic-gizmo age when drivers are too busy texting, watching TV, playing games, talking, eating, putting on make-up, day-dreaming, etc. to bother to look out the front, or side, or rear windows we have to have cars with automatic braking, blind-spot warning, lane-departure warning, rear cameras, etc. Then there are horribly complicated maneuvers like parallel-parking and backing a trailer that are now automated. A 95YO half-blind grandmother can tow a 6000lb cabin cruiser and launch it with one turn. You don't even have to be bright enough to remember/find a key anymore as some vehicles recognize their driver, automatically unlock and allow a start with a simple button push.

Cars that drive themselves will soon be on the road so you'll only have to be capable of opening a door and sitting down and remembering where you want to go.

Now I personally prefer my manual shift but don't think for a second that I could beat a good double clutch automatic in a speed shift contest. It's simply a contest in human reaction time vs. electronic reaction times.

In a simple braking reaction time test, human times varied from 0.7s to 3.0s whereas my computer with a Core i7 processor performs 117trillion instructions per second. No human driver can out-perform the computer. Electrical speed-of-light transmissions will always beat human ion-exchange neural impulses.

Just as an aside Double Clutching, to me, always meant: Step on the clutch, shift out of gear, release clutch, allow rpms to drop, step on the clutch, match rpms, shift into gear, and release clutch

I think that is one of our big problems today, Mike, is the mass access to "smart" cars.

And with this influx of smart cars, comes a whole generation of dumbed down drivers who's extense of mechanical knowledge is limited to knowing how to put fuel in it (and even then, barely).

Years ago, I had a 1919 Metz Express truck and to operate that machine, a person really needed to know what all was going on mechanically and had a real desire to drive it. It was alot of work, seriously.

The small flat-head 4 did not have alot of compression, so starting it was relatively simply: by crank. But, before you did, you had to set the points and the throttle - both found as levers mounted to the center of the steering wheel. Then you set the choke to cold (or opened it according to the engine temp) and then switched on the magneto.

* At this point, it's a great idea to be sure it's out of gear and the parking brake is firmly set, too. *

Pull the crank handle out of the tool storage and insert it through the hole in the valance (below the radiator) into the crown cup and then move it into a good position that will both allow you a good hefty pull and to be at an angle where a kickback won't break your arm/wrist/face. Note how I said "pull"? One of the most common ways to get injured, is to push the crank handle - that's a huge setup for a hospital bill. *IF* the engine starts AND everything goes according to plan, the radiused slots in the crown cup will push the end of the crank handle out and clear. I used to have a rubber "O" ring fitted to the edge of the crank hole, because it was a pretty violent event when it came clear and I didn't like the paint being chipped around the edges.

If the drive will be during the day, the headlamps and tail lamp won't be needed, however, if it's evening, then you must light the lamps with a match, as they used calcium carbide. Hopefully it's not windy - otherwise it'll take a little time to get this process accomplished.

Now, let's take this beast for a drive!

The parking brake is released by compressing the arm on the brake handle and pulling back a little, so the ratchet releases. To put it in gear, you have to depress the arm that is attached to the floor shifter - and by saying clutch, it simply releases the pressure between the drive coupling - there are no syncros in the gearbox.

Now swing the fuel lever downward (remember, it's in the center of the steering wheel?) and off you go. If you are going to reach an incline, better have it in the middle gear range and a good run...as the engine starts to load, you should advance the points by swinging the lever down (this is the shorter lever on the steering wheel) and you should be able to make it - unless this is San Fransisco - and then God help you if you have to come to a stop on one of those hills. And those brakes...you have a footpedal that slows you down - and the reason why the emergency brake is called that? Is because back in the day, the emergency brake was located at the output of the gearbox (either a disc or more commonly, a drum) and if the main brakes, which were originally stacked leather pushing against a drum on the inner side of the drive-wheels, failed (which they did - quite often) you could grab the E-brake and give it a hefty pull and get things under control. Hopefully.
It was not uncommon back in the day to have a religious artifact in the vehicle (Cross, Rosary, St. Christopher medallion) and/or have the vehicle blessed - it was needed, trust me.

So in a nutshell...driving today almost has nothing in common with nearly a century ago...

Current F1 Champion, Lewis Hamilton, says that he doesn't use the paddle shifters that his LaFerrari is equipped with. Runs it in automatic mode. He also has a '67(?) 350GT Shelby Cobra. How's that for contrast?

Ah Dave...memories, memories. 1/2in pipe thread spark plugs. Adjusting valves by grinding the valve stems. My buddy Joe and I picked up more girls with that T than in my Marauder. The biggest problem we had was finding the clay nozzles for the head lamps. That 1:1 steering was a bear you had to hang on tight at all times and those narrow 90psi tires when they blew....they BLEW.
But I digress. I would disagree with you on one point. Smart cars did not make people dumb it was/is the reverse. Back to the T, how many people would/could be capable of all that. The Steamers and Electrics were a direct result of the difficulties the T presented. The electric starter essentially killed the market for both.