Ever seen someone driving a manual transmission who probably shouldn't have?

Jim Stobie from Youtube? I'll have a 40-oz. and a Casey's pizza slice in his memory!

Not sure if my Jim Stobie made it to youtube - do you have the link?

My Jim was from Enumclaw Washington and moved to Ill.
Jim was quite the character, and Ive met a lot of people.
 
I was never great at it. But I'd had a few vehicles that were and luckily I didn't live in a big city so I got a lot of practice. My mom took me out on an Old highway where there's hardly any cars and constantly made me stop and start. The problem I have now is wearing boots versus tennis shoes kind of destroys the pedal feeling and with the arthritis in my legs it would be hard to do day in and day out. I still will or eventually will find an older Honda or Acura that's in manual transmission that I just drive around the highway where there is it a lot of shifting involved. I'm glad that I at least know how to do it. Mom always told me it's a slightly give it just a drop or two more fuel and as it starts to grab slowly release out on the clutch. The only car that I could never really get down was when my folks had the Porsche boxster S, those cars need somebody who really understands clutch pedal feel as it's very accurate in most sports cars. I think everyone should at least be able to drive a vehicle that has it if they need to pending someone's life is in danger.
 
Not sure if my Jim Stobie made it to youtube - do you have the link?
Hmmm, doesn't sound like the same guy. I'd post a link but I'm at work and can't look it up. He was "Stobe the Hobo" on Youtube (note the different spelling). He liked to hop freight trains and ride all over the country filming his adventures, which often amounted to having to sneak out of whatever huge railroad yard he wound up in in the darkest hours of the night. He didn't have much money so he'd survive on cheap beer and snacks from the convenience store. His videos were really well done however and he played the piano quite well and used the music in his videos.
 
Hmmm, doesn't sound like the same guy. I'd post a link but I'm at work and can't look it up. He was "Stobe the Hobo" on Youtube (note the different spelling). He liked to hop freight trains and ride all over the country filming his adventures, which often amounted to having to sneak out of whatever huge railroad yard he wound up in in the darkest hours of the night. He didn't have much money so he'd survive on cheap beer and snacks from the convenience store. His videos were really well done however and he played the piano quite well and used the music in his videos.
Yeah not my guy....

My Jim Stobie was about twice as fast as the shop rate on anything mechanical.

He was older than us kids but gave us all jobs working for him doing everything from mechanical work to carpentry.

Jim built nasty big and small block chevies, and I got my 72 chevelle bench seat 4 speed 383 car from him- I basically traded it for an 82GS1100.

He was a master shifter - faster than anyone in our group and could bark 1st through 4th at ridiculously low speed without bucking somehow.
 
My SIL lived in Vancouver 10+ years ago (when some super cars still had manuals) and she was in a cafe and watched some rich kid smoke the clutch on his $200k car with a learners permit sticker on it, try to parallel park it on a hill... The car was towed away...

I do notice some people love to shock load a manual transmission on every shift, even just driving normally, but I've never known anyone whose actually broken anything from that...
 
Wife, son, daughter can drive stick shifts in Cars ,P/U/ Trucks, Ag Tractors and semis. But then there are not many manual offerings these days. No need to post the few offerings.
 
I used to love to drive manuals with one big exception. Always hated to launch a boat with a manual truck on steep , slippery boat launches. Not fun. Seen video of people mess up and launch their trucks too.
A-men. Thats about as tricky as it gets.

Add in its usually your buddy that went cheap and only has a 2 WD truck w 3 on the tree.
 
One of the car sites researched this and it looks like 1987-88 with Dodge or GMC being the "winner."
I would have guessed a decade earlier.

I’m 59 and have had the pleasure of driving two vehicles with a 3 speed column shifter. One was my moms 57 Chevy Two Ten and the other was my grandads GMC van. I think it was a 1965. Both are still in the family slowly rotting away to nothing.
 
True story: buddy of mine in his 30s that still lived at home bought a new Porsche Boxster manual. He bought it a dealer 65 miles from home as the local dealer wouldn’t give him the price he wanted. #1, he had to have a buddy drive it home from the dealer as he couldn’t. Four months later he calls me up to see if I want to take it for a spin as manuals were all I had owned to that point. We open the garage door, take the cover off it, and he goes to start it. Deader than a doornail. Call Porsche roadside assistance to come jump it. They come, we get it started, and oh my god the clacking from the valvetrain. How long since this car was started? “I dont remember”. I try to get in to pull it out of garage but he’s afraid I will scrape the door or scrape the bottom as driveway is steep. He gets in, attempts to put it in reverse, GRIND. 2nd attempt, GRIND. I offer again, he says I have it, and finally on 3rd attempt gets it moving with minimal grinding. He did scrape the front a bit on the driveway getting to the street. Ok, I get in and it has all of 95 miles on it. It had been driven roughly 30 miles in 4 months. We took it for about a 40 mile drive, mostly hiway. He finally learned how to drive it, and kept it 7-8 years but it had ridiculously low miles when he sold it. What makes this even funnier was prior he had had several BMWs but never a manual one.
 
I would have guessed a decade earlier.
Yeah, they were real unpopular by then but somehow GM held out some base C10 model, I think 1986, as eljefino pointed out. [For a while I had a "thing" for 3 on a tree trucks, so I've looked it up a time or two myself.]

*

Years ago my brother flew into town, I was at work and for some reason my wife was going to pick me up from work and we'd drive in one direction, and he'd drive my car in the other. Don't remember why. I remember my wife pulling away from a light, and me looking back, watching my brother immediately stall my beloved car in the middle of an intersection. Instant regret!

[He wasn't a bad driver, just not used to the car. No issues when I got it back. But I still remember it!]
 
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