Kids grow up in their world; not ours. There are pros and cons but there’s no point wishing it was otherwise. The biggest challenge (in my opinion) is the current tsunami of wishy-washy bullshit which conspires against your kid. Children start with unlimited potential but school and society work tirelessly to erode them until they’re clueless and weak at adulthood. The world doesn’t need more wimps (of either sex).
At a less philosophical level, I want my kids to know how to drive manual transmission vehicles. Why? Because that’s the right way to live. About this I’ll entertain no excuses. People who can shift with a clutch are better than those who cannot. Even people who can’t use a clutch know it (even if they’d rather not admit it).
Even if you can’t have a manual in the driveway, it’s best to know what to do with one. A cowboy without a horse still knows how to ride. A monk in a monastery still has a dick. If you can’t handle a clutch, you don’t even know what you can’t do.
Here’s the rub: If you raise your kids right, they’re not compliant lumps of clay by the teenage years. By then they’re getting pretty self-reliant (also opinionated and annoying but that’s another discussion). Dad haranguing them about proper vehicular life choices isn’t an easy sell. They just don’t see the point of learning a tricky skill that only applies to 10% of cars.
I blame the homogeneous squish that is a modern car. They’re grey, silver, or some derivative of a non-interesting color that makes the putty colored computers of yore seem a gaudy rainbow by comparison. The body is plastic lined and bulbous, the bumpers are plastic wrapped Styrofoam, and the whole thing will expensively and irreparably collapse in the smallest accident… but only after blasting you in the face with an air bag.
The engine is an appliance more than a machine. Despite nifty capabilities and fancy metallurgy, it’s a eunuch. It’s serf to the overlord; a computer controlled EPA mandated fuel management system designed to imbibe unholy gasoline derivative concoctions who’s main purpose is to win votes in the Iowa primaries. The fuel computer weighs a thousand options; none of which have anything to do with fun. It carefully censors any excess happiness you might accidentally experience and creates a life of regression to the mean.
Throttle input is received by the fuel metering system and routed to a committee meeting between the injectors and the mediocre, uninspiringly adequate, automatic transmission system. The transmission sends a memo to the traction control software, which checks a list supplied by the anti-lock brakes, and then the whole thing goes up to a vote. The EPA and safety regulations have two votes while the driver is like the representative of Puerto Rico at Congress; merely an observer.
When all parties have signed off on the safety briefing, the car trundles forward with all the joy of an insurance salesman’s regional presentation.
The driver, trapped in a safety-pod, peeking over highwall sides and glancing around massive A pillars has nothing to do but keep the lumbering box between the lines. In lieu of driving fun, they’re provided with six cupholders and a Bluetooth equipped radio that will inexplicably stop working when 5G mixes with a new OS in the next upgrade and the firmware goes to shit because the software was written by the lowest bidder in Elbonia.
The driver is only nominally in control. They’re mostly just meat, strapped to a crash cage, surrounded by red tape, and existing to make payments.
Is it any wonder kids of current times don’t pine for a car? The vehicles they’re used to are expensive dull computers on wheels. Their schools bathe them in mass transit Utopian bullshit and hazy predicted futures of self driving cars. I grew up watching Bo and Luke thrash a ’69 Charger, my national history was horse riding adventurers exploring the west, and my future was spaceflight. As a teenager there was a lot to learn about cars. I had to keep cheap primitive rusted behemoths running based on will, careful driving, and bailing wire. I drove junk that was about to collapse at any moment and learned plenty by it. I’d lost brakes on three vehicles before I was old enough for my first legal beer. I’ve had a hood fly in my face, headers collapse on me, things catch on fire, and I consider doors optional. I learned to drive when you had to pay attention or die. My kid has never been in a car without AC. I was Tarzan trying to tell Urkel about trees.
My arguments could only gain traction with someone who’s actually piloted a machine instead of sat inert in an SUV. So I played the chase scene from Bullitt. This would be inspiration. I added some followup questions. “Did you see Steve shifting like a bad ass?” They didn’t, it’s not really obvious in the clip, which was my point. Question two is what mattered. “Did you feel Steve McQueen shifting like a bad ass?” Yes!
Bingo. I had them. You can’t be Steve McQueen if all you know is to point a lever at D and piddle down to Walmart. The kids grudgingly accepted Dad might have a point… and besides I control the auto fleet at Curmudgeon Compound so they’re lucky I’m not making them drive a dump truck to school.
It wasn’t easy, but my kids can shift a car. Enjoy the little victories.
A.C.
P.S. An amusing side note, when they had learner’s permits I put a kid at the wheel of my Dodge. (Lord help me! I was a trusting soul.) Not realizing cars and trucks are apples and oranges, the kid dropped the hammer like they were in mom’s weaker and calmer consumer grade SUV. My truck lit up! I drive it mellow… like a man who hates repair bills… so the kid assumed that’s all the truck has. Nope! When the kid let fly with 300+ horsepower and God knows how much torque, the lightly loaded duallys tore a massive hole in the dirt road and launched us like a rocket. Thank goodness we didn’t wind up in a ditch. The kid had no idea folks can drive around using only 20% of an enormous beastly engine. I got a look of respect from that experience. “Dad, this thing is overpowered… can’t you dial it back?” Big smile, “I do every day, it’s called throttle control.” “But it’s crazy hard to manage.” Another smile, “If you think the truck has balls, maybe someday you’ll see what my motorcycle can do”. That got a second double take. Not often you can impress a teenager but I did it that day.
(Hat tip to Maggies Farm and The Borderline Sociopathic Blog For Boys which reminded me of the Bullitt clip I’d used back then.)
The clip is only 10 minutes, pour a cup of coffee and enjoy:
Ahh; pre-history, no addicts sleeping on the street, feces piles or needles, men wearing jackets and ties. Oh for times past.
Ha ha ha… I replayed the scene and you’re right… it’s remarkably clean and free of junkies. Maybe the director shooed crowds out of the way but I didn’t see garbage or the like and that’s interesting.
A manual transmission is an anti-theft device at this point in time. Congrats and job well done on skills passed along. I have a Kawi ZRX1200 and 2017 Mustang GT 6sp in the fleet and try to tell people that we live in a great time as far as beer, bourbon and vehicles goes. But I’m not sure the younger ones get it.
Great Chase scene.
I’m sort of not impressed by the car chase clip. If you watch it carefully, when they are going down the hill and over the humpy, lumpy bits, they overtake the same dark green Volkswagen Beetle at least half a dozen times.
C’mon guys! If the VW can outrun those two and slow down to allow them to overtake, then overtake them again, that VW driver must be driving like a demon! Either that or the VW engine is putting out more power than a V8.
Yeah, I know. I need to get out a bit more at nights and get a life, eh? >};o)
One of my coworkers the other day waxed eloquent about how the future will be great because no one will need to own their own car. My mental record skipped a few grooves and I tried to explain why I thought ownership of a car was important. Oh no, he says. Ownership is just a burden – wouldn’t it be better if ridesharing companies took care of all that, and you didn’t have to worry about maintenance and upkeep.
It’s an alien mentality. I read the same dumb article that probably prompted this (or equivalent). I understand why our oligarchs and their mouthpieces shill for serfdom, but I don’t understand why anyone coming up in the world would *buy* it as a vision of a life worth living.
I tried to explain to him what I saw when living in a giant megacity – people who didn’t own anything. They didn’t own cars, so they were trapped in a city using crappy mass-transit. Their days were eaten by commutes. They couldn’t shop for more than what they could fit in a backpack, so they wasted time on that. Their rent was carefully calibrated to eat all their surplus. Thus, they were all poor and desperate even though they worked the same 40-50 hours the rest of us do: Without ownership, you’re taken advantage of – you become a serf. You can’t build any wealth.
I own a fairly uninspiring car – but it’s reliable, and I OWN it. I can go where I want, when I want – I don’t need to wait for anyone to give me permission. I’m going to drive it until it’s rust and duct-tape, and you will pry it from my cold dead hands.
I hope to own a house at some point this year – I’ve probably paid 2-3 yearly salaries worth of money towards rent in my life so far. No more.
I was incredibly fortunate to have parents who insisted on me learning how to drive a stick, and we had a vehicle for me to learn in. For the first few months I had my permit I was Only allowed to drive dad’s manual transmission truck. I really wanted to drive as much as possible, so I learned relatively quickly. When they decided I could have a car, they even debated on whether to allow me an automatic or require manual in the list of necessities. They ended up allowing an automatic, but I kept in practice because I drove a stick daily at my first ‘adult’ job after I turned 18. I totally agree that every kid should learn this skill!
AC: Good on you! Cars aren’t the only vehicles that need shifting. When your offspring is attempting to out run the Zombie Horde in a John Deere, s/he will be grateful for Curmudgeonly Dad’s Old Fart Ways.
There’s a car chase scene with Jason Statham manfully using little Euroweenie shifting paddles on a BMW/Porche/Mercedes/Not-American-who-cares. It just ain’t the same as Steve and his ilk.
I’m not sure what cars of the past were overall better–was it when they had carbs and might take several minutes to get running on a very cold day? When brakes were 4 wheel drums on a single circuit? When 20mpg was excellent fuel mileage? When the most powerful Mustang had less power than a current base Honda Civic? When cars had both carbs and computers at the same time, with all the disadvantages of both? Before anti-rust from the factory? For a long time “they used to make them better” was true, but it’s been a while. I’ll grant that they all look the same now, but I’m more interested in how they work.
Rented a uhaul to move some stuff, my kid asked what’s that thing on the door?
Yeah crank windows.
I drive a street prepped miata as my toy car. Millennial at work asked why I move the “stick thingie” side to side so much. Knew what a manual was. But had never seen someone verify nuetral.
I forgot about the magic of hand crank windows. Especially after the plastic handle breaks and has been replaced with a vice grip.
Miatas rock! Enjoy the hell out of yours.
Let me see if I properly understand. You drove what is today considered junk conspiring to kill you. Rusty, failure-prone, manual-transmission, carbureted, manual drum brakes with a single master cylinder, lap belts only if even those, no crumple zones, and a steering column that was simply a spear aimed at your heart with a plastic wheel and a horn button added. And an AM radio. That not only made you a better driver, it made you a better man. An *adaptive* man who had to learn to fix stuff, make do with what you had, and above all care for your vehicle as you would any other tool you had to depend upon.
Now you should have seen this coming, but wasn’t the ’74 AMC Gremlin just a perfect car for making you the man you turned out to be?
Hah! Got ya! Pour that bit of revelation into your morning cuppa and take a mighty drink! I know it burns, but like all medicine if it doesn’t kill ya it was probably good for ya. Maybe. Could be. Hard to tell.
I attempted to teach my then-girlfriend-now-wife to drive a manual. 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula model, 231 odd-fire V6 rebuilt to supposedly 275hp (that’s what the cam, piston and carb combo were advertised at, I didn’t dyno it), 4-speed manual, Summit clutch (cable-actuated), Summit seats… It would lift the left front wheel off the ground grabbing second gear. Loads of fun, but a clutch that would throw a hip out of joint with frequent use. Went to the university football stadium parking lot one fine evening, plenty of empty space. I tried. Lord, how I tried. The smell of burning clutch. The smell of burning rubber. The squeals of tires I’ll have to pay to replace. The pain in my right leg as I tried stepping on an imaginary brake. The fear of what this would do to the relationship I was pretty darned fond of… Called a buddy, had him come over and I took his car home. They later returned in my car, he drank my beer and pronounced her good to go in any normal vehicle so long as it wasn’t his. Good man. Made him best man at my wedding.
If you value your relationships and your mental health there are two things to never do: 1) teach your own spouse to drive a manual. 2) Borrow a buddy’s vehicle to do the same.
She still prefers the minivan, but in a pinch can drive the manual tractors and the pickup. Which, on a cold and snowy night there’s nothing that says loving like seeing your own tractor pushing through the drifts in the driveway and plowing a half-mile down the road, Your Loving Wife at the controls, purely out of concern that you get home Where You Are Loved and Belong, safe and sound.
It’s worth a clutch. Probably worth having to drive a Gremlin too, but I won’t ask for that.
– Max
I agree with everything you wrote except the AMC Gremlin. They sucked too much to endure.
My millennial man-children have often asked me “How did you learn how to fix so many things?” I told them that poverty was a great teacher. I told them I drove my first car, a ’59 Ford Fairlane, home for the first time with minimal brakes. Every light that was supposed to be on was not working, and every light that wasn’t supposed to be was illuminated. You know, the “GEN” light, and the like. There was no internet. There was no YouTube. There was a sixteen-year-old boy, a eighteen-year-old car, a minimal set of tools, and a Clymer repair manual or, better yet, an old fart to show me how to fix whatever was broken. It felt like God dropped the Ten Commandments on me when I went back east, told my uncle what car I had, and was handed the complete, two-volume set of the FACTORY REPAIR MANUAL for the 1959 Ford Fairlane! Where he got it is still a mystery, as he never owned one of those cars. Yeah; that old Ford taught me a lot. It didn’t have a stick; just an automatic that was barely that. I spent more time under that car than in it! Kids now don’t get it when I tell them that back then, cars broke down all the time. I guess they’ll blame us Boomers for depriving them of that experience as well! It was this way with everything. Something broke, you FIXED IT. These days, if the paint is burning off the car or the laptop starts showing wear marks on its corners, it’s time to throw it out and buy a new one. …Yet WE’RE the ones to blame for “climate change,” and are to be browbeaten into “going green…” Kids, we were “green” before we even met your mothers!
Oh; and it’s a good thing your kid launched your Dodge on a dirt road. Had he done that on pavement, you might have ended up driving through someone’s HOUSE!
The Bullit carchase is mediocre. The one in Ronin is probably the best ever; DeNiro and Jean Reno chasing Natascha McElhone as an IRA terrorist in a BMW around Paris.
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