I’ve participated in several discussions on here over the last several years about driving a vehicle with a manual transmission (aka, standard shift, stick shift, 4/5-speed…). Until last November, I had never owned a car with an automatic transmission in my 24 years of driving. I still have my 2006 Mazda3 5-speed manual but I also have a 2012 Mazda CX-9 (Large Crossover/SUV) which is my first automatic (a 6-speed auto with SportShift, to be exact).
Over the last five years or so, every time someone rides in my Mazda3 for the first time they comment (in amazement and/or confusion) that they didn’t know anyone still drove a stick/5-speed/manual/or whatever. I’m 39 and, other than my childhood best friend, I don’t know anyone my age or younger who even knows how to drive a manual. Considering that only 2-4% of cars sold annually have a manual transmission (there are no definitive statistics for manual-shift cars sold in the U.S. for all automakers, so 2-4% is largely an estimate), it’s not surprising that most drivers under 30 have no clue what that third pedal or wobby joystick-like device between the seats does!
I suppose I was lucky that my mom was a school bus driver and, for many years, her bus was a 4-speed manual. My sister fell in love with a red '85 Honda CRX for sale on the other side of out tiny town (less than 0.5mi from city limit to city limit) and, like most CRXs, it was a 5-speed manual. My pop (grandpa) told her he’d buy it for her if she could figure out how to drive it…after shaving 20-30k miles off the life of the clutch and demonstating that Honda’s 5-speed manual was durable enough to use in a semi-truck (“grind 'em 'til you find 'em” doesn’t begin to describe what that girl did to those gears, which were obviously indestructible). She stalled at least a dozen times in the first 100ft…but two days later, she was a pro.
Pop bought her the car, but mom said she had to use it to take her driver’s test to get her license…she had a few glitches and almost failed on the first try, but she nailed the parallel parking test (that everyone failed) which barely let her pass the test.
A couple of years later, I had to learn how to drive in that CRX and ultimately drive it for my licensing test. My mom (only 19 years older then me) was very relaxed in most areas of parenting, but she was Hitler as driving instructor! The first time I had to stop at an intersection that also was a very steep incline, she popped my hand when I attempted to use the handbrake to avoid rolling back. Eventually, I had to sit at that intersection and wait for someone to stop (inches) behind me, then start off (using only clutch, foot brake and gas pedal) without rolling back into them!
I also learned a few other ‘super secret’ skills- for instance, I can adjust my mirrors to eliminate any blind spots. I was amazed to learn that your mirrors aren’t correctly adjusted if you can see the rear fender or any other part of your own car! She laughs at the Blind Spot Monitoring System on my new CX-9, but I just use it as a fail-safe/backup to my mirrors.
Anyway…even among the rather small minority of us drivers who can drive a vehicle with a manual transmission, I have never driven a column-mounted manual shift (most commonly a 3-speed manual and largely phased out in by the mid-to-late 70s, maybe a few years later in pickups). There isn’t a shift diagram like you find on the shift knob of a floor-mounted manual shifter. As with any manual, once you drive it a few minutes you’ll never even look at the shift diagram again…until you drive a 6-speed for the first time and need to figure out where they hell REVERSE has gone! But left to my own devices, if handed the keys to a 3-speed manual on the column, it would take me quite a bit of trial and error to figure out where each gear is located…and I’d probably end up making a 2nd to R shift and leave the tranny laying on the ground at some point unless they had a some sort of primitive lockout for that.
The slang term for a 3-speed column shift was “Three on the tree” and a 4-speed floor-mounted shifter was “Four on the Floor”…then they went and made five and six-speed manuals for which there was no clever rhyming nickname. How many of my fellow Dopers can drive 3-on-da-tree? And how many under 40 can do so?
Thankfully, it’s essentially a theoretical question as manual transmissions are (sadly) headed for extinction. And the ones that remain until that sad day have at least five speeds. On the upside, the bench seat also became a part of automotive history when the 2013 Chevy Impala ended production. That was one of the main (if not THE main/only) reason for a column-mounted shifter.
Three-speed manuals were usually paired to weaker engines (such as the Ford Thriftpower 200-cubic-inch Inline-6, which was rated at only 75hp in the '75 Ford Granada weighing 3400+ lbs)! Ford’s ‘optimistic’ estimated 0-60mph time for the '75 Granada with the 200/3-speed manual was 24.8 seconds. I use the world ‘optimistic’ because no one has ever managed to the 6-0 mark in a '75 Granada so-equipped! =) I’m just kidding, I think top speed was 61mph. Seriously, Ford’s quoted 24.8 seconds was actually several seconds quicker (if that word can even be used in this context) and the actual 0-60 was closer to 30 seconds. As a point of reference for non-gearheads, a 1975 Honda Civic with a 71-cubic-inch Inline-4 and 4-speed manual could hit 60mph i 14.2 seconds. My 2006 Mazda3 with 2.3L/138-cubic-inch I-4 and 5-speed manual does 0-60 in 7.5 seconds (or 1/4 of the time it took the '75 Granada). Any Snapper Riding Mover (or push-mower probably) and the Barbie Dream Car could outrun it…but I’m veering of topic again…I have a habit of doing that and I’m sure I’ll do it again…
The 70s were truly the Dark Ages for automotive performance. Carmakers were hit with a double-whammy of trying to improve fuel economy while simultaneously reducing emissions exponentially (transmissions geared to use less fuel by reducing engine rpm and a new device called a catalytic converter to cut emissions by 90% for the 1975 model year per gov’t regulations, despite strangling the engine’s ability to breathe and cutting power by more than half in some massive V8s. Prime Example- in 1976, the Cadillac 8.2L (500-cubic-inch) Big Block V8s final year of production, it was rated at 190hp.)
Quick sidebar- one small car company in Japan decided to figure out their own way to meet emissions guidelines without the compromises caused by the catalytic converter- and that is how Honda’s CVCC (Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion) came to be and made automotive history. CVCC engines were significantly more powerful than engines of like-size that used a catalytic converter. They also could meet the emissions requirements using Leaded or Unleaded Fuel, pretty amazing in the early 70s!
Veering back to my original topic (hope you’ve enjoyed the auto history lesson and if you haven’t, I really don’t care)-
Who can drive a manual on the column? Also, was there ever more than 3-speeds on a column shifter?
