At least, that’s the way it is where I live, and in high school. Basically, you aren’t a man if you have an automatic car. And automatic sports cars will get you tarred and feathered. I am guilty of thinking automatics are effeminate, too, but…I don’t know why. Probably said environment. Anyway, does this phenomenon transcend high school to all/most walks of life? And what’s the rational behind it? Shouldn’t a car be a car and nothing less than a car? (Inspired by some guy’s pet peeve, as quoted in our new yearbook: “Automatic sports cars.”)
I wouldn’t call it contempt, but more like frustrated. An Automatic sports car is missing the point. If your driving in the mountains, and really having fun, you have to row your own gears. Mountain curves require delivering the right amount of power in the exact right place to get the full enjoyment out of it, and every automatic I’ve seen just doesn’t do it right. Even on flat ground. Its hard to explain, but when you’re controlling everything you can really get in tune with the car(literally, you tell when to shift by the song of the engine) and the road. Its just a lot of fun, which just doesn’t happen in an automatic, even as the driver you just feel like a passenger.
I guess the effimininity of the deal has to do with the fact that many girls just decide a clutch is too hard, and too much trouble to drive, so they never learn.(disclaimer: I know lots of women who drive manuals just fine and have fun doing it, but in general, girls or more likely to not learn how to than boys) Then again I heard a statistic that something like only 28 percent of people in America know how to drive a clutch, which really amazed me, because at least 90% of the people I know drive a clutch everyday.
I was afeared of driving stick until I was forced to do so. I could never see the point. Why use so many physical and mental resources to accomplish a task you can accomplish simply by stepping on something? What could be easier.
Then, when I was in school, my sister gave me her car, which was stick. She taught me how to drive it, and I hated it. Hated, hated, hated it.
Then I went somewhere out of town and rented an automatic. Ohmygod! It was like driving with my foot cut off! With no arms! I had gotten so used to participating in the operation of the car with my stick shift, and suddenly it was like the rental car was retarded or something: I couldn’t give it little boost around a corner, I could accelerate by feel, I couldn’t control the car for passing with the precision that had become instinctive with my stick.
Now every time I buy a car it has to be stick. Driving an automatic feels like I’m driving a lifeless machine, a manual car is alive and is working with me.
I was not aware of the prejudice against automatic sports cars, but I once met a real flashy idiot, with a real flashy car–very low to the ground, phallic car–and I snorted quietly to myself that his little bullet on wheels was automatic. It just said to me that obviously the car is all for show. A sleek, racy car like that was obviously designed to be driven by somebody who loves to drive; who has a very close relationship with his car. And here he might as well have been driving a woodie station wagon.
Another disadvantage of automatics is you can’t downshift a few gears to surprise tailgaters with a sudden brakelight-less decelleration.
Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche
Hell, I say real men don’t even know how to pronounce kwichee but I’ll have me some more of that bacon and egg pie.
Sometimes its the car yuor stuck with. I have a 5.0 mustang, automatic, I am thinking of spending a couple grand and having a Tremec 5 speed race tranny transplanted in, then I would have so much more fun.
BTW all I could afford at the time was the automatic mustang.
Grrrr I dont use the preview button and look what happens.
When I bought my 98 Mustang GT, the automatic was $1200 more than the standard. Not that I would have bought the auto under any circumstances…
The Tremec is pretty good. Definitely do not get the T5. Don’t go for the 6-speed either if you get tempted - it’s an overweight, rough-shifting pile o’ junk.
This attitude has changed a lot since the days of the big block Camaro. Back then, sports car + automatic = not a sports car. Today, luxury cars like Cadillac, Lincoln, Lexus etc. have morphed into sports cars (i.e. the Euro performance sedan) and no one questions their having automatics. It’s also more than just attitude. Today’s automatic transmissions really are a lot more responsive than the slushboxes of past. But pure, high-end sports cars like Porsches, Ferraris, Vipers etc. are still expected to be manual (you can’t get an auto Viper).
Having said all that let me add this:
LEARNING TO DRIVE A MANUAL ISN’T THAT HARD!!!
I think you should be required to take your driving test on a standard. If you don’t have the coordination to handle a stick shift you shouldn’t be allowed to drive a car at all! And I really believe there is some truth to this. Every person, man or woman, who I’ve known that could only drive automatics was a terribly driver period.
[dodges thrown tomatoes]
I drive a '96 Chevy Impala Super Sport, and I am sorry to tell you all, but it is an automatic…it only CAME as an automatic, and though I have driven sports cars my whole life, they have ALSO always been automatics. I do not know how to drive stick. (Now you see why I have to dodge your insults.) Truth be told, while I did not get any grief in high schhol about my automatic, it was clear that stick drivers seemed to be respected more, only because back then when you were first LEARNING how to drive, the fact that you learned on a ‘harder’ car somwhow demonstrated a greater level of skill. As an adult in the business world, I’m sorry, but no one cares. Incidentally, aren’t ALL cars for show? I mean, who the hell has a Ferrari that ever gets to get it up to 200mph anyway? Like all guys, I wanted a car with power (which the Impala certainly has), but my wife wants something that can eventually hold a car seat and is ‘functional’ (i.e. 4-doors and big). The compromise? A sedan with a kick-ass Corvette LT-1 engine. Why does everyone assume that only a stick driver can ‘appreciate’ the power of a sports car? I like to drive fast and get good handling too, so sue me! Sure, laugh at me at the stop light because you can beat me off the line in your (theoretically equivalent) manual Corvette. Then I’ll watch you suffer through carpel-tunnel syndrome driving through the hell that is Southern California traffic, because you have to shift so damn much. Maybe I’ll never experience the thrill of this ‘mountain driving’ that was mentioned, but considering that will be less than 1% of the driving I’ll be doing in this car, I’d rather have my hand free to pick my nose, drink my soda, screw with the radio, etc.
[/dodges thrown tomatoes]
Around where I live, the manual 5.0 mustangs go for more than the autos, because everyone wants the stick. So I went for the auto, saved a grand, and have regreted it ever since, although I have more than enough get up and go to waste most hondas and other goofy imports.
I drive an automatic, and it seems to me that all the shifting that’d be required in Chicago’s stop-and-go traffic would make a stick more trouble than it’s worth. How much control and power do you need when you’re stopping every 500 yards for a light or construction? If you live in an open area or in a place where you have a lot of hills or some other feature that makes controlling your car more closely worth it, I’d say manual is probably the way to go. but for urban driving, the only benefit I see from driving stick is less money laid out when buying your wheels.
Do you smell that…Smells like…HOLY WAR! This would probably be better served in GD or (more likely) IMHO right now. The question has been answered, the rest will just be debatin’ and witnessin’.
Tangent:
This reminds me of the MS-DOS/Mac debate.
-MS-DOS: Real men know command lines. Real men know directory structures, and can navagate them with text alone. Real men can type a command with two fingers faster than some punk with a mouse can do the same thing. Besides, MS-DOS allows you to do more with your system. You can get down to the bare metal and really customize. Of course, CP/M offers an assembly interpreter, and MS-DOS only has BASIC, but who’s counting? 
-Mac: I really have no need for getting down to the bare metal. All I want is to work without having to learn anything. Besides, I never was that good of a typist. I failed typing in High School. And I like pretty pictures.
That was in jest, of course, but it gets to the root: Some want control and customization, others just want to drive around and look out the windows.
I’d like to be able to drive a manual, because it seems like a neat skill that it might occasionally be useful to have.
Sorta like how I’d like to speak Japanese. It’d be really cool to speak Japanese, but it’s just not worth the effort to learn.
I did try learning to drive stick soon after getting my license. I wasn’t immediately good (not terrible, just not good), so I gave it up. There are enough other things that I am immediately good at to keep me busy. No point in doing something if you’ll be mediocre at it.
<------- Eats quiche, and drives an automatic.
How am I supposed to combine the two if I have to shift gears manually? 
I do know how to drive a standard, and have had that knowledge come in handy when getting the really cheap rental cars or driving an intoxicated friend home in their car. Really though, I much prefer the convenience of the automatic. But then again, I don’t have a thing for cars. They just don’t do anything for me. My only requirements for a car are that it gets me from point “A” to point “B” reliably, and that the air-conditioning works.
I prefer manual. It allows greater participation in the driving experience. It allows such elegant and precise application of speed, power and acceleration. It’s rather frustrating when driving an automatic, and having to mash down the accelerator hard enough (and then waiting) to kick it down a gear before some speed picks up in order to pass or merge with traffic.
A maunal transmission comes in mighty useful during the winter too, being able to perforn slow 2nd gear starts so the rear wheels don’t spin on snow or ice. And much more effective for “rocking” the vehicle to get unstuck from a snow drift or something.
And manual transmissions are tough to find in the sport/ luxury class. Lexus? Nope. Infinity? Nope. Mercedes? I don’t think so. BMW seems to be the only one. And they are rather proud of it too.
See my post here. Manuals are for people with balls. Testicles. Big ones. Hairy ones. Guys who can beat you up with their pinky. Automatics are for… everyone else.
Note: Anthracite is hereby declared to have testicles for the purposes of this post. Don’t tell Ms. Doctor.
–Tim
Driving in the countryside at night, Ah got one eye on the white line in the middle o’ the road, knees on the wheel, mah other eye on the side of the road, one hand grabbin’ a tall boy, and the other on mah Remington, looking fer wild pig meat for the table. Ain’t got no hands left over fer no dang stickshift.
But anyone who owns an automatic Porsche, Ferrari, etc… should be bastinadoed, whether they live in LA or not.
Oh, and there’s NO greater feeling than teaching yourself how to trick shift (shifting without using the clutch at all) or double-clutching, or speed shifting.
–Tim