Tell us what manual transmissions you have operated in highway-licensed vehicles. No off-road equipment. I have driven 3 on the column, 4 on the column, 3 on the floor, 4 on the floor, 5 speeds, 5 speeds with 2 speed rear ends, and a 13-speed semi.
Never driven a semi, but I have done all the rest. It is difficult to buy a standard any more, as even many of the fancy sports cars now come with only automatic transmissions. I think I can add a 6-speed on the floor as well.
I test drove a sports car with a 6 speed on the floor, but cannot remember what it was so I didn't count it. An Alfa Romero I think.
If you mean a stick shift...once. And I don't know that I'd call it driving. Scariest thing I've ever done in my life. Trying to push the gas...steer and change gears (without looking) and trying to brake and clutch followed by lots of gear grinding. My neighbors brother was trying to climb out of the sun roof. LOL!
I have never driven a semi, either; but most of the vehicles that I have owned or driven have been a manual transmission. When I was a kid, I used to go along with my dad in his big power line truck, which was at least a 1-ton, maybe more. It had 4 gears, plus low and high range. This is where i learned how to drive. When we were on some little dirt road, hunting for a burned out transformer ; my dad would have the truck in compound low, and he would let me drive it on the back roads. I almost went off of the road when trying to learn to shift without looking down at my feet; but eventually i got the hang of shifting, and could even start the truck and shift when we were on an uphill slope. Since I have had horses most of the time, we usually had a stock truck to haul horses in, and that is what I drove most of my adult life. I also worked in the hop fields and drove the big trucks that hauled the hop vines from the field to the machinery where they processed the hops. When my husband was out of work in the winter time, we took the kids and went out into the woods and he cut firewood to sell. I would advertise it on the radio program, take orders and addresses, and we all piled into the old Studebaker truck to deliver the firewood. Even though I was able to drive the Studebaker, it was basically my husband’s “Toy”, and he was the one who drove it. This picture is the wood ready to be unloaded from the truck, cut into lengths and split into firewood.
LOL it was easy I just seldom took my hand off the shifting knob. I liked changing gears. Like the beach boys said " I burn rubber in all 4 gears".Only mine was a 55 Chevy not a Duece Coupe.
Nice photo Yvonne! I see some nice Tamarack on there. I hauled a couple of hundred cords of tamarack and red fir with this old girl that never failed me. All of my fence posts were tamarack as were all the logs in my cabin.
I learned on 3-on-the-tree. I've driven 3, 4 and 5 speed floor-shifts, some with 2 speed differentials (trucks and Austin Healeys.) I used to drive a Coca Cola truck...I forget how many gears it was. I was in my mid 30s before owning a car with an automatic transmission, and finally returned to a floor shift again 10 years ago (1990 Volvo sedan.) I wish manual trannys were still readily available.
During part of my high school years, drove a stick-shift John Deere and Farmall tractors. Later, in 1980 or so, I drove a brand new flatbed truck that had a "Hi-Low" button on the floor shifter. A fiberglass manufacturing company I worked for, had the flatbed to transport the sides, top and back of motorhomes. I also drove a couple of cars that had the shifter on the steering column. Manual transmissions didn't cut it when sitting in stop-n-go traffic. Good way to burn out a clutch!
I had exactly the same experience! You need to be pretty coordinated to do that kind of driving I just didn’t have what it took, the guy that was trying to teach me had the patience of a saint I couldn’t believe he stayed in the car…
Traffic outside of the DC area (where I lived for so long) got to the point I worried about the exact same thing. And all that shifting was a pain in the butt...as soon as you got into second gear, your foot was on the brake again. When all I could find were vehicles with automatics, I saw their advantage in that setting, although I'm not certain there was less wear & tear. I'm now in a rural area with zero traffic, and have a new car with a turbo and an automatic. There are times I yearn for a floor shift when going through these winding roads (Manual Mode is for posers), but I know I'd feel the pain at the pump if I actually had it.
I totally forgot about my tractor. I had a Ford 9N, and had a blade for snow and a loading platform that I used for moving firewood. It was soon after my parents had passed away, and their house had become totally overgrown. My folks had a little hotel that they ran, and that was where they lived, so the house in Sandpoint had sat empty for several years. The hotel had an old sawdust furnace, and my dad had a small cat that he used to push the sawdust into the basement where the furnace was at. After they died, someone offered to trade me the tractor for the cat. I am sure that they got the better part of the deal; but I didn’t know how to drive the cat and had no way to move it anywhere if I did know how to drive it. I used the tractor for several years, and it was really handy to have. In the winter , I loved getting all bundled up and clearing out the driveways for my neighbors. We lived right in town, so there were no long driveways like in the country. In the summer, I had the trees trimmed, and some cut down, and my ex-husband hauled the firewood over to western Washington for his mom’s fireplace. We used the tractor to move the firewood around the house to where it could be loaded on the pickup truck for the trip to Washington. This is the house at Sandpoint, and you can see how overgrown everything was. It was a serious undertaking, trying to reclaim the property and make it livable again.