Just a reminder that you are quoting Mr. Scott, not me
Understood, sorry if my post left the impression that it was your sentiment.
The problem is manual transmissions just don’t sell in the USA, so they are on a slow steady decline. Auto makers tend to spend time and effort on their best sellers, and I fear manual transmissions may be relegated to niche and specialty vehicles because they don’t have performance, efficiency, or popularity going for them any more.
When I bought my Yaris 5 years ago, the salesman was thrilled when I told him what I was looking for. He’d had the 6 year old car with 18,000 miles on it sitting on the lot for quite some time. It was in perfect condition. I assume whoever traded it in decided they did not like a manual. I had been looking for a couple weeks and manuals were few and far between. I jumped on this one.
Yeah, I bought a manual V6 Ford Contour in 2000 or so, had to drive a couple hundred miles to another state to get that configuration. It was a great car.
This isn’t the way cars are marketed though. All the major car marques have some kind of flagship performance model. I must drive by several dozen new Challengers and Corvettes every day - people aren’t buying these as “appliances.” 2019 Mustangs are damn near as common as Camrys on the road. There’s always going to be a market for cars that offer a certain driving experience that’s more than just basic transportation, and manuals will always be part of that, even if only in small numbers.
I suspect a lot of people say they only want functional transportation, but are actually drawn to sporty features, at least to some extent. Of course, that could mean extra horsepower or a useless spoiler rather than a stick shift.
A bit hyperbolic, of course. Per carsalesbase.com, in 2019 in the USA there were sold over 72,000 Mustangs, 61K+ Challengers, 48K+ Camaros… and over 336,000 Camrys.
It’s just that Camrys might as well be stealth cars since their utterly perfected transportation-appliance unremarkability makes them melt so well into the background clutter 
.
We used to seek out manual transmissions, ever since I learned on my first “car” (a Fiat 128, and I’m not sure it deserved the name, hence the quotes). For a long time, they generally got better gas mileage - and were still pretty common. Why pay more, for something that got poorer mileage.
Now that we’re older, and have been driving in DC metro area traffic for 30 years, it’s a different matter. Our Civic, bought new in late 1998, was the last manual tranmission car we ever bought. Still have it, as a matter; our son has it at college. The two others we’ve bought since then (Dodge Caravan, replaced by a Honda CR/V 14 years ago) didn’t have manual as an option - nor did we want it by then.
Larger vehicles just usually don’t have manual as an option - and since we’re older and crawling into and out of a subcompact is not getting any easier, it’s automatic for us here on out. I still think everyone needs to learn to drive manual; our son did NOT especially enjoy it but as that was what he had to do to have the use of that Civic, he managed it.
Fun fact: You actually could get a manual transmission on the first and second Caravans and Voyagers (that is, the 1980s and early 1990s models). It was a very rare option, and apparently one had to specifically order one as dealers never actually had them in stock, even though technically the manual was “standard” and the automatic an extra cost option. I’m betting Chrysler mainly offered a base model with a manual transmission they knew few people would actually buy because they could advertise a lower base price and then upsell people to the automatic.
But here are a few rare manual transmission Caravans/Voyagers.
Advertising certainly suggests the manufacturers recognise a market that likes to think of itself as enjoying driving. I mean Mazda’s tagline is Zoom Zoom!
This. Yes! I taught my kids how to pop the clutch, and they have mastered the technique.
Works for some vehicles (especially older ones), not for others. My previous car (an early 2000s Maxima) absolutely would not start unless you turned the key all the way to the start position; that was when the ECM looked for the electronic signature from the key for permission to fire the engine. Coasting downhill with a stopped engine, you could turn the key to the run position and clutch-out and get the engine spinning, but the engine would not fire like this. You could turn the key to the start position while the engine was spinning like this, but the clutch interlock (to prevent starter operation with clutch out) would also prevent the ECU from querying the key. But of course as soon as you push the clutch in (to defeat the clutch interlock), the engine will stop spinning.
Bottom line for that car, if you weren’t starting the engine with the starter, then you weren’t starting the engine.
I think for most cars this method also requires at least a little bit of energy left in the battery, since you need some current in the alternator’s field windings before the armature will produce any electrical power. If your battery is 100% dead, you won’t get any electrical power out of your alternator to fire the spark plugs and/or injectors. The exception, AIUI, is some late-model vehicles that use permanent-magnet alternators. I don’t know how common these are though.
Hmmm, interesting, hadn’t heard that before. I had a 2001 Honda CR-V (so, not that old) and could pop the clutch to start it.
Huh - interesting! I would not have expected there to be manual-trans Caravans.
As the transmission was one of the few things on that car that did NOT ever cause issues, I’m not sorry I got the automatic.
eta: I bought it in 1996, so manual may not have been available by then.
The early Chrysler minivans actually sold reasonably well in Europe (On my first trip to Germany in 2006 I was kind of surprised to see them on the road there). I bet the manuals were more common over there.
It’s interesting that you never had problems with the transmission on yours – everything I’ve read is that the four-speed automatic they started offering circa 1990 had a lot of problems (while the three speed automatic they used in the 1980s was reliable but was obsolete by the 1990s). Maybe they had the problems sorted out by 1996.
And yeah, I think the manual transmission was only offered on the first two generations, the 1984-90 and 1991-95 models. I think when Chrysler redesigned their minivans for 1996 they eliminated the manual option.
ETA: And I bet whoever originally bought that 1987 manual transmission Caravan I linked to in my last post was a real skinflint who wanted a Caravan, but wanted the cheapest Caravan possible. It looks like that van has zero options whatsoever.
Sure, you might like the idea of a manual van, but who here is crazy enough to buy one sight unseen, knowing it has “issues” (a quarter-million miles on it and oh, it isn’t drivable), then flying to Germany (with your socket wrenches, no doubt) to pick it up…
…and then planning to LIVE OUT OF IT while touring Europe?
Yes. Moving up continuously instead of stopping, so the column packs up tighter.
But also, and I agree with you about this, more likely to slow down sharply at corners or bumps or puddles, because you don’t have to change down and up again.
I learned to drive on a truck with manual steering, and I /always/ returned the other hand to the wheel. Now I’ve got automatic steering, and I don’t need the second arm to turn the wheel.
Also, a driving position not on top of the wheel, and I have to hang the weight of my arms from my hands.
I live in Europe and my car has manual transmission. I don’t think I was born to be a driver, but I would not buy a vehicle with an automatic gearbox because I feel it would deprive me of much of the control I can exert on my car now.
I remembered I posted in this thread, so I thought I would re-visit it to say: I ordered my Bronco today!
I ended up getting the manual transmission after all. Hope I don’t regret it.
I’ll let you know how I like it in 6-12 months…