I learned in a car with automatic transmission first, but had to drive both and prefer (strongly prefer) a manual transmission.
Worst one ever - The Van. The shifter was about a meter long, the gears were so hard to find, and I had to drive it in tight spaces.
Best one ever, my current Honda from 2014. Absolutely glorious.
The fuck is a clutch? Oh, manual gear? I learned at driving school, I think all of them use manual cars in Brazil, since they’re way more common than automatics
An old Chevy pickup, with my dad mocking and bitching at me the entire time which really helped my anxiety about being on the road. Wonderful learning experience. First and last time I ever went out with him to learn to driving.
I believe the better question here is “clutch pedal” as automatic cars still have a clutch, you just aren’t manually booting it.
But yes I did learn to drive stick in a 2002 Mazda Protege.
Here in Spain it’s estimated that automatic transmission is between 30 and 50% of cars. No official numbers have been released.
So most people have learnt with a clutch. Definitely everyone who has had their license for more than 10 years.
An 88 jeep Comanche with a blown up power steering pump and you had to hold it in reverse.
An ancient 10 speed dodge dump truck doing sugar beet harvest in nodak.
The UK is becoming more automatic now, and we also have a lot of EVs. I learnt on a manual but didn’t get a car until last year, which is electric. It’s much better.
Dad had to replace the clutch before I had mastered the subtle art of doing two things at the same time in a car.
Also I’m dyslexic and get my right and left mixed up easily . So you can imagine trying to navigate two feet on 3 pedals didn’t go well.
I did eventually learn a manual.
1972 AMC Hornet Station wagon with 3 on the tree. Literally The Green Hornet
1993 Isuzu rodeo.
Learned in a Golf 7 and now I drive a Golf 4. It was delightful not having to turn off auto start stop after I got my license.
Common password recovery question…
I did. 1993 Saturn SL2. I bought that car for $1500 in 2001 when I was 16 and quite literally drove it until the wheels fell off (which then ended in me flipping over the car on the highway, but that’s a story for another day. That also ended with being the reason I can’t listen to “The Red” by Chevelle without a mild panic attack, also a story for another day.)
The idea of buying an 8 year old car (with only 93k miles, at that) for $1500 just seems so foreign now.
All it needed was a muffler, too. I drove it for about a year and a half before I killed the clutch, and that was the most expensive repair it had.
I had a 4 speed Saturn. I loved it. Great car. Was so disappointed when they went out of business
Most people not in the US. We just call it ‘driving’
It’s not just automatics anymore, but also
- CVTs, especially forneconoboxes that used to be manual
- electronic shifters, sort of automatic
- automatic, with more and more gears
- EVs don’t need a transmission
The thing is there’s no longer much of a price difference and manual is no longer the efficient choice
The change is coming for you guys as well. I’ve travelled to Colombia on a regular basis over the past 20 years or so, and transmisión mecánica has gone from nearly ubiquitous to almost exclusively an econobox option. Maybe performance cars as well I guess? Wouldn’t know about those
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.
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.
Ok dude. This doesn’t change what I said. Your explanation is irrelevant to people’s understanding prior to that and your pedantry looking to make yourself right. When people talk about a car with a clutch, we overall assume manual transmission. You want pedantry? Next time say “clutch pack” or “clutches”, seeing as traditional automatics don’t have a singular clutch. So you can at least be right in your explanation.
Ok sorry dude, no need to be so pedantic about it.
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.
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
