The greatest pleasure of driving a vehicle with a manual shift is the smugness that comes from knowing that there aren't many others who could do it. Then again, there's that nagging feeling that those other people may be onto something.
I've got two vehicles, one with a stick and one with automatic. The problem now that I've gone senile is that sometimes I forget which vehicle I'm in and try to depress a clutch that isn't there, or worse, forget to depress the clutch at a stop.
In any event, fewer and fewer vehicles with manual shifts are being sold. Zusha Elinson tells us in Do You Drive Stick? Fans of Manual Transmission Can’t Let Go the following:
The proportion of cars and light trucks in the U.S. sold with manual transmissions has fallen to around 7% in 2014 from 35% in 1980, according to WardsAuto, which keeps data on car manufacturing and sales.
The decline is expected to accelerate as high-performance sports cars, once holdouts, increasingly shift to hybrid automatics.
Ah, but here's the silver lining. The number of potential car thieves who would be tempted to steal a stick shifter is probably declining, too.
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