True, but 50 years from I'll be 95. Autonomous cars might be my friend, if I'm this side of the grass, for keeping some resemblance of independence.
The real stick shift drivers? Well, I would say those who can do both…
The driver that can do both very well. But power shifting really isn't that important to 99.9% of manual drivers.
But let's get the skillset correct. Just knowing how to shift does not mean one is any good at it. Just like knowing how to pass a driver's test does not mean one is really proficient at driving.
I said do it "very well", which means very skillfully.
I used to like it but never bought one for myself. I drove stick for work a lot and friend's cars and trucks. It just seemed to me it would get old? annoying to have all the time. No disrespect it just another choice - some like / some don't.I'm near 60 and drove manuals from the beginning. But over the years I have worked with a number of people who were older than I and had never learned to drive a stick themselves. So back in the 1960s and 1970s, depending on the part of the country, new drivers who could handle only automatics were around then. I never understood that.
It's great to drive a stick when it's light-effort and fun, but some in trucks and performance cars are a bear. The 4–speed (3 + OD) in my brother's 1983 Ford pickup had very long throws, who knows why. The manual transmission in my old diesel Mitsubishi tractor was far easier and better than that one.
