A lost skill
What is it?
Recent research shows that this once-ubiquitous ability is increasingly becoming a lost art.
Only 18% of Americans know how to use a stick shift — with the number even lower among younger drivers.
In a survey of US drivers, Extreme Terrain found more than a third of Gen Z drivers (35%) never learned to drive stick, compared with just 9% of baby boomers.
Other disappearing arts? Reading an analog clock. Writing in script. Navigating by using a map. Memorizing a whole bunch of phone numbers.
I learned to drive on a column shifter:
A column shifter is a shift lever mounted on the steering column of vehicles in the post-war era. The shifter was strategically mounted on the steering column behind the wheel, which cleared some space on the bench seat for an additional passenger.
Up until the late 1960s, many vehicles had three-on-the-tree column shifters with overdrive transmissions that provided three more gears.
There was a lot to think about: column shifter, clutch, hand signals.
Also, for about the first twenty years of my driving life I drove shift cars with center console shifters and no power steering. It took some muscle. Could I still do it now? Probably only if I had to. But fortunately I haven’t had to.
Oh, I remember all of those. And power steering makes a huge difference. Today’s drivers never even have to think about that.
My current car is a 2018 with a 10 speed automatic. Every other car I have owned, dating back to 1971, was a stick shift. I sometimes miss the good old days, but not very much.
Three on a tree.
Four on the floor.
Driving a bug with a rusted out floor panel; look down and see the road go by.
Cruise control by brick or stick on the gas pedal? Nope, those were bad ideas.
Old used cars of my youth, when gasoline was 35 cents a gallon.
Drove only sticks until the mid-90s, but was a young guy with muscle cars and loved the control it gave me. As I got into family life I went to econoboxes then luxury sedans now suvs, and left sticks forever – haven’t done the mid life crises sports car yet – but like a bike it’s a skill you don’t forget.
In Europe sticks are still common at rental car places, and one time I gave up my last auto on the lot to the American woman next to me who was fussing she couldn’t drive the stick they gave her (you have to ask when you reserve since they do run out). She was lucky I had the skill, happened to be checking in at same time, and was willing to swap.
In the big collectivist-controlled cities a manual transmission is considered an “anti-theft device”.
The only problem is that the thieves get so pissed off they can’t drive your car away that they trash it.
As a person who for the last going on 4 years, drives the 405 freeway 2 days a week from Long Beach to Van Nuys, automatic transmission is akin to air conditioning in desert communities. I likely would have already required a knee replacement otherwise.
I was about to comment that my mechanic calls the “stick” an “anti-theft device”. Both my current rides are stick shift (1 Subaru and 1 Ram 4×4). My wife won’t have anything else and rues the day that the Subi gives up the ghost and she won’t be able to find a 5-, or 6-speed to replace it. I’ll will the Ram to the grandsons (they can fight over it) but they will need shift lessons.
They are also good for control: l pull your foot off the gas (of diesel) and immediately begin to slow… That direct connection to the wheels also saves on brake wear in hill country.
There are several YouTube offerings about things we were taught and took for granted that the younger set cannot or will not do.
To practice my one-upmanship (a skill not practiced is a skill lost):
I also learned to drive on a three on the tree.
Pickup truck.
In the fields.
When I was 12 going on 13 and barely big enough to reach the pedals.
The clutch was so tight, I had to physically pick my butt up off the seat to put enough weight on it to press it down.
Re: no power steering. There’s a reason many of those old vehicles had huge steering wheels. It wasn’t a fashion statement. It was leverage.
Those doorknob looking things they used to bolt onto the steering wheel helped a lot too. All of our farm trucks and tractors had those.
I bought both my kids their first vehicles. Used. Budget was $500. (My kids are in their 40’s…this was quite some time ago). I made sure they both got vehicles with manual transmissions for their first, so they’d know how to drive them. I don’t think either one has had a stick since, but they know how.
Of course now days, it’s very difficult to find a car with a manual, even used. New it’s almost impossible, even as an option, except for a few high-end sports cars.
Don’t know which is the chicken and which is the egg: They don’t make stick cars any more because most people don’t know how to drive them, or most people don’t know how to drive them because they don’t make them any more.
Who knows?
I bought a Tesla. I don’t drive anymore, I supervise. I started with column shifters, moved to stick shifts, switched to automatic, and now I just tell the car where to go. Such is life, age, and technology. The Tesla drives better than I do, and certainly sees better, but still has problems with parking, route selection, and planning. The next FSD version should improve all three with a 10x increase in AI weights.
Ranking the changes, I think script is worth keeping, clocks perhaps. I do wonder if brains are getting the training they need to work well? Memory and concentration seem to be going missing.
I’m old enough to remember double-clutching a three-on-the-tree, one ton pickup truck. That was an art form, and often earned the comment “grind me a pound”. Those old beasts were a female dog to drive. No power steering either. Can’t remember if they had power brakes or not. Not sure any young driver to use one of those as a get-away vehicle.
Waidmann
Still double clutch my WRX once in awhile just because I can. A skill mostly still used by vintage car racers.
Script? You betcha. Stick shift? My first several cars, including an IH Scout with an additional shifting lever for the overdrive, so you had to split shift it — a skill that took coordination but that even my petite wife picked up to the bafflement of her girlfriends who rode with her. Analog clocks/watches? My preference, because having grown up on them I can glance at a clock and know the time without consciously registering it, just as I can do with various aircraft instruments that need to be scanned quickly but with care, especially when landing a taildragger in a crosswind.
Now I drive automatic transmission cars, but I still use script and prefer analog timepieces.
What a fun topic. Anti-theft device. 😉
All my and my wife’s cars were/are stick shift, except for a used Prius I bought a few years ago. The Prius is a godsend in horrible stop & creep traffic.
My first car was a 3-speed, then a 4, followed by many 5-speeds. All manual. I still have a fun car that is a turbo with a 6-speed and sport wheels and suspension. It is my first experience with a 6-speed manual.
There is a road that connects my house to the freeway that I drive a lot and it has hills and is very twisty. Marked at 45 mph, the traffic varies constantly between about 32 and 50. Brother, that 6-speed requires a ton more shifting than a 5-speed, unless you are willing to just leave it in a lower gear and waste gas.
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A friend gave me a demo in his autonomous driving Tesla. Very impressive.
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My wife & I once owned a VW Passat station wagon. A V6 with a stick shift. That was a big mistake. I think VW put zero effort into adapting the engine to a manual drivetrain. It was very difficult to drive around town without stalling the engine once or twice. Should have gone with an automatic. The brakes had serious problems too.
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I decided I needed a more stylish watch than my cheap Timex digital. So I now have battery powered analog watch that looks nice, but it is surprisingly challenging on occasion to read the thing. It has 12 identical hash marks with no numbers, and even the hour and minute hand look the same, except for a small difference in length. At night in a darker room, I’ve misread it more than once.
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I had a childhood friend whose parents owned some interesting cars. A Caddy with big tail fins and a gas cap behind one of the drop-down tail lights. And a Plymouth with a push button shifting on the dashboard. A search tells me that was a TorqueFlite 3-speed automatic.
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Reading a map! I still really like to memorize a route via a map prior to driving it.
I’ve become addicted to playing music in the car via my phone and Bluetooth. Turns out my favorite music player conflicts with audio on Google map directions. After I figured that one out, I was using Google to guide me through a new route through Santa Cruz during rush hour. What a disaster. The worst route imaginable including about 18 little residential streets.
I have a VW Alltrack. Manual transmission. All wheel drive – a rare thing. Drives like a dream.
When my kids got old enough they were told, if you want to drive, you’re going to have to learn. They resisted like it was poison. Then, they were of course the coolest of their friends because they know how drive a manual. My daughter, the artistic one, also wanted to learn script because she thought it looked cool. She writes it very well.
We bought a 2026 Honda Civic Si 6-speed manual last year…apparently they won’t be making a version with manual transmission for ’27 (apparently it will return in ’28). It wasn’t all that easy to find this, and the Corolla was still going strong but we were afraid if we kept waiting there would be no manuals to purchase anymore in our price range.
We sold the 18 year old 5-speed Toyota Corolla when we bought the Civic. I expect this will be our last car purchase, since I’m about to turn 70 and hubby turns 80 30 days after that.
I drove a couple of Saturns back in the day, the first was 4-speed with no power steering. I loved it. Even my mom drove a stick into her late 70s.
18%, I would have guessed less than 10%.
I like automatic transmissions. With a stick, it’s very hard to drive in the city or in stop-and-go traffic while eating. And I love to eat while I’m driving.
Losing the skills of the past is part and parcel of the advance of civilization. Do you lament the loss of being able to drive a horse-drawn cart or a chariot?
Didn’t think so.
Taught all 3 of my daughters to drive manual transmission. One still does but her car is aging. I just sold my ancient manual.
Can I write in cursive? Yes, but much is barely legible. However… every legal document I sign begets a comment about how I am one of the few who still signs my whole name and THAT is completely readable.
But I also have a friend who keeps bees and another who is a blacksmith. My wife and oldest daughter cross-stitch and my youngest sews are bit.
We could host a festival of lost arts. 😉
Calculated obsolescence.
I taught my son to drive a stick and he taught his sister. We bought her a stick to take to college. She told us it was great because when her friends wanted to borrow her car she would tell them it was a manual transmission and since none of them could drive it she didn’t have to lend it out but still got credit for being a good friend who was willing to.
My first car was a stick. In the 80s I burned out the clutch going up and down the hills of San Francisco.
$500 to replace. No small amount then.
My next car was an automatic.
I really miss standard transmissions. Haven’t had one in 20 years. I do get a fix when I visit my brother in Denver and make him drag his 69 Camaro out of the garage and from under a tarp and insist he let me drive it.
I’ll never forget my 64 MGB…what a sweet car to drive up Boulder Canyon. I’d be scared to death to drive such today given it’s size.
1956 Buick Roadmaster, 322 CI V-8, four barrel carb, 250 HP, 350 pounds feet of torque coupled to a three speed manual shifter on the steering column. That was my learner car. My dad eventually figured out why he had to replace the clutch and both rear tires within six months of me getting my license.
I’d be scared to death to drive such today given it’s size.
Not to mention traffic. I used to ride my bike up Logan Canyon on a regular basis, these days, no way. Apart from being 40 years older, it would scare me to death. Lots of traffic, it used to be the occasional car.
I drive stick now, but when I was 23 I’d only driven manual transmission cars…I did, however have a Lambretta motor scooter which of course had manual shifting, so I had some feel for how it was done. Needed to pick my then-girlfriend up at the airport, she had baggage so the scooter wasn’t going to work. I borrowed a car from a work friend…it was a VW beetle…confident that I’d be able to pick up on the shifting without any problem.
And I did make it to the airport and back, though with a certain amount of gear grinding.
By the way, Cadillac believe it or not, offers a manual transmission for its Blackwing.
https://www.cadillac.com/sedans/ct5-v-blackwing
Eight cylinder manual transmission. Would love to drive one.
Other disappearing arts?…Navigating by using a map
As I purchase used clunkers, I have never had GPS in my car. And probably never will. Three years ago I had a number of contractors come to my condo to price a job. Quite a few called me to ask me to get the gate unlocked. My condo does not have gates, but a condo complex a quarter mile away does. GPS sent them to the wrong condo. GPS hasn’t corrected, as it also happened last year.
I have driven several times from Texas to New England without a map. I have a picture of the map in my head, which suffices.
There is an area about 15 miles from where I live that I do not go to often enough to have the route memorized to a given store or place, but is complicated enough that I often am not able to find the place I am looking for. I need to make a map with the end of the route in detail.
Three years ago my sister visited me in TX. We drove to visit our cousin up in rural Oklahoma. You just get on a US highway near my condo, and drive on it for 300+ miles, until you change to another US highway. Which accounts for all but the last five miles of the trip. My sister was nearly continually looking at the map on her Iphone, but I was just driving the same route I had for decades.
My sister and I had a communication error when I told her the route was back roads—by which I meant US routes, not Interstates. When she heard “back roads,” she thought of “back roads” where we grew up in New England: asphalt roads but narrow enough that there is not a white or yellow lane dividing marker. Dangerous if you go above 40, because they are very curvy and you never know what is up ahead. Whereas the US routes in TX are an easy 60-70, often divided highways.
I last had a stick shift auto in 2009. Like others here , I learned to drive with the shift on the column. My memory may be faulty, but back in the day when I was hitchhiking, a driver picked me up who could change manual gears without using the clutch by having the RPMs aligned just right.
Good memories, my first car was 4-on-the-floor, and I learned to drive stick in it with Dad riding shotgun on the way home from the car dealer. May the Lord bless that man.
Made all my kids learn a stick ,they were the only ones in the gang who could. Agood story is about a 200 mile trip with no clutch in a 67 ford pickup with a heavy duty 4 speed . Stopped by the popo a few times for rolling non stops ,cops pushing the truck to get me going. Good times.
Little triangular windows and electric windows period.
Many years ago, I had a summer job that I hated, but I liked the guys that ran the business, and I was too much of a coward to quit the job and hurt their feelings.
Before going any further with the job, I had to take a test for a commercial driver’s license. I was tested on a big grain truck with a stick shift and six gears It had a manual transmission that required double clutching. I figured I’d fail the test and consquently get fired. That way I wouldn’t have to quit.
Unfortunately, I passed the test. Double clutching wasn’t too hard, and the truck wasn’t much of a chore to drive, so I had to work up the courage to tell the business owners that I was going to quit. I felt like a jerk. So embarrassing.
How many of you continue to “fondle” the shift knob for your automatic just because it feels like you should, or you want something useful to do with your right hand?
But I have made my peace with cruise control. Much better for the knees when I don’t have to rely on my leg muscles to maintain speed on long highway trips.
May of today’s automatic transmissions have the option to control the gear, upshifting and downshifting manually by touch. Some even have controls on the steering wheel.
But I much prefer driving an actual stick, with a clutch. Not every body does. I have two antique vehicles, more than 70 yrs old. One is 3 on the tree, the other is a 4 on the floor. I savor them both.
Old 62 f600 5 speed with a button for the two speed rear axle ,heavy duty 292 v8 with a 4 barrel . Had a throttle knob on the dash ,,get up to speed and pull the knob out ,and it held the throttle open. Push the knob in to slow down/stop. Dangerous for sure ,,,,Good times.
Three on a Tree. Four on the Floor. Foot pedal coordination’s. It would take me a little time to get back into using one.
I used to marvel at the old cars with pushbutton transmissions. Now my three year old American car has one. Pretty slick, except sometimes I forget to shift into Drive and wonder why the car doesn’t move. Old habits die hard.
There’s nothing quite like the thrill of power shifting a 4 speed during a “speed exhibition” in a Muscle Car.
I have always admired the beauty of cursive by the female hand. I can do script too, but it doesn’t win any gold medals for artistry, it’s functionable at best.
I can still walk my dogs without looking at my phone for directions. But when I do visit the big town of LA, I use the map function on the phone rather than the Thomas Guide.
I was at AAA the other day for some Auto Insurance adjustments and noticed they don’t have the local map racks as they once did. Maybe you have to ask for them now. But they do have cruise brochures.
Learned on the family VW Bus then taught my sister! I saw one on the road a few days ago and I wonder what they are like to drive now.
I guess you never forget but not sure I could drive a stick on the street without a little practice first. Last time was 37 years ago before we sold our Porsche to build a house. Well worth the exchange.
The kids not learning script now will end in disaster. Our brains need it.
Same with an analog watch.
I always memorize the map route before driving off. I like maps! So I like the detail GPS offers about miles to interchange/intersection, etc and the number of lanes and which one to be in and stuff like that. More info is better and backup cameras are the best thing since sliced bread. Wish my old Toyota truck had one.
My husband likes racy cars so the other car is a Tesla. I have learned to love the tech. Don’t use FSD much, neither of us likes where the car positions itself in a lane especially on curves and turns. But it’s heaven in stop and go traffic. The evolution of the roadside images has been fun to watch over the years – it’s gone from trashcans, then people at the roadside and now dogs are shown. When the day comes that the neighborhood wild chickens show up on the screen I will concede that Elon is the king of the universe!
My current car is my first automatic. It took me some time to train my right hand to leave the shifter alone during normal operations. I wonder if I’d be quite able to shift smoothly back into driving a manual if I were to get one for my next car after this.
I drove the family 1952 Plymouth station wagon, with shift gear on the steering column, then a tiny Honda mini (in Japan), a VW station wagon, and finally a 1970s Volvo sedan – all manual shift. It did take me a bit to learn, initially – especially where we lived, since there were a lot of hills and I lived in terror of rolling back while in neutral – but I eventually got the hang of it and drove manual shift cars for a good few years. The last two cars, though – have been automatics.
At this point in the 21st century, a manual shift car is really a kind of all-car anti-theft device.
I wonder if I’d be quite able to shift smoothly back into driving a manual if I were to get one for my next car after this.
In my experience it’s like riding a bike–it comes right back to you in muscle memory. I never owned a car with a stick, but somehow learned how to drive one because I was traveling somewhere abroad where it was hard to find a rental with an automatic. It got to be almost second nature on that trip. Then I didn’t use one again for many years, but when I did, it came back very quickly. I’m not sure if I’ll ever drive a car with a stick again, but I’m glad I had the experience.
Until 2017 I drove primarily stick shift. Wife also learned on stick and drove it well when we had them. Both daughters learned on stick. The elder daughter tested on stick; the younger never really mastered it and we got an automatic Civic, and she tested on that.
Mr. Plaiss The Blackwing sounds interesting but I’ve had a V8 with a 5 speed manual (1989 Ford Mustang LX 5.0). The big issue is if the V8 is at all touquey (and good ones ARE) the clutch is going to be VERY touchy. Between heavy clutch and a very tiny engagement point the Mustang was a challenge to drive. My wife would stall it regularly and she is (well was hasn’t driven manual for 10+ years) very good.
Honestly I love my Crosstrek and its CVT . As a 60+ year old driver I don’t miss having to deal with stop and go traffic with a clutch. That said I do look longingly at the 6 speed 245+ horsepower Subaru WRX when I drop the Crosstresk for service although I know it’s silly.
My wife’s family only had manuals, and over the many cars she and I have owned in our marriage we try to have one manual in our 2 (sometimes 3) car fleet. Our current stick is a Fiat 500 convertible. I was only able to teach one of our kids* but he has only owned manuals ever since.
3 on the column is tricky.
One time, in New Zealand, I had to drive a stick with the steering on the right hand side. I was concerned the shift pattern would be backwards and the clutch would be on the right, but, thankfully neither was the case. I still ground the gears a few times though, because I wasn’t used to shifting with my left hand.
My dad hated manual transmissions so the minute automatics were available that’s all my folks owned. I have no idea why, but I desperately wanted to drive a stick and a few of my High School friends had manuals. One day one of them asked me if I’d like to try. I said, “Sure!” And we swapped places at the next light. I was successful immediately. I had been so obsessed with wanting to learn I had been watching my friends’ whenever I drove with them and I figured it out.
TommyJay, I had 2, 5 speed manual Passats. Sedans. They both drove and shifted well. Then I got a 6 speed, VW CC. Wow! That was a nice car. I would often get 40mpg on the highway.
I tend to get absent minded and I feel shifting makes me a more attentive driver. Plus, as many have mentioned, there’s nothing more fun on a twisty, country road.
*When the others learned to drive our manual was a leased vehicle from my company and only my wife and I were insured to drive it.
Forgot to mention, along with writing cursive I can write cursive backwards; mirror script like DaVinci did. I can write as quickly backwards as forward, and, oddly, my backwards writing (when held up to a mirror) is more legible than my forward script.
I can also write calligraphy as long as I have an ink pen with a wide nib.
How my inexperience with a three-on-the-tree probably changed my life
Episode Five “The First Date”
I was at a loss. I thought we didn’t like each other at all and we held each other in our arms. I do not hold women I hardly know in my arms and can barely hug my own female relations and I held her in my arms. And the look on her face while we danced, it was bliss personified. I was very confused.
That next Monday, I was in the SIL talking to Betty. I told her about the party as she was present when I was invited. She knew of my dislike of Flying By. I told her I thought there were “sparks between me and Flying By of ALL people! Flying By! Me and Flying By!” Betty knew Flying By socially. Her husband worked with Flying By and they played on the same employee softball team. She gave me Flying By’s vital statistics: no boyfriend, never married, no children.
I decided I wanted to see her again and that I would ask her out. But how? If I asked her out face to face, I would either be surrounded by people or have to ask her to step out in the hall or something. Plus, I might put her on the spot and make her turn me down to my face. Calling was an option but those were Ma Bell days and phone lines were expensive. There was only one line and phone for each group of desks. It sat on the middle desk and the middle desk guy had to answer it and take messages (no voice mail in those days either). I would most likely have to leave a message and it wouldn’t be a private conversation with so many people around at both ends. I didn’t want anyone to know I was asking her, particularly if she said no. My chicken-s*** solution was to send her a message that said “I would like to see you again. If you would like to go out with me here is my home phone number”. Easy, if she doesn’t want to, don’t call. To deliver the message, I decided to hack her terminal buffer and caused the message to appear on her screen. Then I erased it.
I was hoping I might get a call that night. I was really hoping I wasn’t going to get a call from my boss telling me to stop bothering Flying By. I really had no idea how she might respond.
I immediately got summoned by Betty. Flying By has called her about a message I sent. Uh-oh. She needs it resent. Oh! Betty then says “He is right here” and hands me the phone. It turns out I was premature when I erased it and she hadn’t gotten my number down.
We had our first date a few days later. Flying By had invited me to go out with her and some of her friends to see a local band that they liked. She had a posse of (mostly) young program engineers, some of whom I knew and a few others that all socialized together. About 12 or 15 men and women in all. There was little romance, just a bunch of friends mostly but not all from work. To top it off about half of them were going in a borrowed van and they persuaded me to be the designated driver. I was bummed. This was not my idea of a date. I was beginning to think I had read something in that was not there.
Even though I drove a clutch every day, I had only driven a “four on the floor” and never a “three on the tree”. The linkage was kind of loose and we had hardly gone a few blocks when I jammed the transmission so badly, we had to be towed. I was really embarrassed. I felt like a complete dork in front of her and her friends. Plan B was to go in several cars. Lucky for me there was only room for Flying By in my Spitfire. The venue was loud and it was impossible to talk to her. I asked her if we could leave.
Now I had her in MY element. Me just driving around in my Spitfire chit-chatting with a girl. We drove around all night talking, part of the time with the top down (yeah, in November). At one point she was chattering away stream-of-consciousness style. She indicated she was a bit tired of being hit on by men and she kind of wished she had a disfiguring scar across her face. I was absolutely horrified at that thought. Then she warned me that she didn’t want to get married and didn’t want children. I warned her that I wanted both. I finally dropped her at her place at 5AM. I went home wondering what to make of her and if work-friends was all it was to be. At the same time, she had acted like she never wanted that night to end. Me either. I was still confused.
Charles Eagles reminds me …
About 1985 I was ‘gifted’ a beat up 74 maverick with a 170ci straight 6 and three on the tree. It had rust holes in the bottom of a couple of the doors, looked horrible, but never let me down. I think I drove it from about 70k to 170k miles.
Anyways, l left the key in the ignition one night and it was parked on the street in front of my house. The next morning I saw it was gone, but in fact it was about 25 yards behind where it had been parked, now in front of my neighbors.
As like CE’s car, this one had very loose shifting linkage, such that the typical pattern would often find oneself shifting to a dead spot. With experience I mastered the feel needed to find the 3 forwards and the reverse.
The person who tried to steal my car couldn’t find a forward gear and there the car sat, with the key in the ignition stuck in reverse.
Yep. Same here. I learned to drive in 1984 and stick shifting was the norm.
When we lived overseas we bought a left-hand drive Volvo station wagon with a manual transmission. Not easy to drive in the UK. Three years later brought it with us to the States. My mom taught us how to drive it. Not my favorite. I am way out of practice but in an emergency I *can* drive a manual.
In the spring of 1971 not long after I had gotten my learner’s permit I had to drive my older brother to the Ft. Belvoir army hospital in our F100 three on the tree pickup. He had broken his arm playing sand lot baseball and my mother couldn’t drive the manual transmission. She provided directions. It was a bit stressful, as I hadn’t passed the driver’s test yet. We all survived the trip. He continued on the track team running with the cast. He was a bit faster than me, 56 sec. in the 440 (for Rufus T Firefly). I was hard pressed to get under 60 sec. in a 440 so that made me too slow in the half mile. But in the mile, that wasn’t the case …