OT. Vehicle Anti Theft

[Dean Hoffman]

It's a tire cover on the back of what might be a jeep. The tire cover shows the shift pattern of a manual transmission.

[micky]

That's pretty funny.

When I was looking for my current car, one ad was for a mustang convertible. Ad was not clear but it turned out to be a beautiful red one with a stick shift. The guy had a 17-year old son who didn't know how and wasn't interested in learning how to drive a stick.

The owner pretended not to be disappointed in him but he must have been.

[hubops]

For our fly & drive vacation in Ireland, a few years ago, I was concerned about driving on the wrong side of the road while sitting on the wrong side of the car - so I wanted a rental car with an auto-transmission - special order at extra cost ! ps : the opposiite-side driving wasn't as bad as expected - but the very narrow roads < ! > were quite scary - so I was glad that I wasn't also refreshing my stick-shift skills at the same time ! John T.

[micky]

I can see that. I think the roads where I grew up were narrower than the same roads are now. I don't have many memories of my father, but one was that he drove in the middle of the rural road because they were so narrow, and just pulled to the right when reaching the crest of a hill. An oncoming car could squeak through. This is not Ireland, it's western Pennsylvania.

I got a stick shift on my first long vacation with a car, to save money, and it was good to drive one long enough (2 months instead of the prior

7 hours on a turnpike with no need to stop) to be able to say I can drive a stick.

But since then where I go, no need for special order and it's only a dollar or 2 more per day for an automatic.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I might have been interested in driving a stick. My father had one, but he wasn't a good teacher.

[rbowman]

I drove a Volvo White cabover that had the real anti-theft setup. I had 9 speeds but the basic pattern was

1 2

3 4

After 100,000 miles I'd still blow the shift if I was distracted.

[Scott Lurndal]

I learned when I was 10, on a Ford Model 8N.

I still drive a manual Colorado from, I believe, the last year they offered a manual transmission.

[Ralph Mowery]

I started driving in 1966. The driver ed car was a manual on the colum. Most all the boys my age wanted a car with a hot engine and a 4 speed in the flour. I seemed to alternate over the years from manual to auto. Finally decided about 15 years not to get a manual transmission on anything again.

[Dean Hoffman]

My dad had a 1948 8N. It shared one trick with some earlier motorcycles I've ridden. One opened the gas valve to the first position to use the main tank. He could run until the tractor ran out of fuel then open the valve a little farther to access what would be like the reserve tank.

[danny burstein]

[snip]

Same deal with early 1960's (US version) VW Beetles. There was a lever you'd kick below the steering wheel to access the rest of the gasoline.

[rbowman]

It comes in handy when you don't have a gas gauge. Of course you can screw up. When the DR650 started to sputter I reached down to switch it to reserve and found it already was there.