Check Your Six. Or your Five.
on 09/12/2014 at 08:17 AM
I so miss having a manual - and I’m a girl and have been told (especially since it was in HS that I owned one) - “there isn’t a problem with the car, you can’t drive a stick” (dealership, shop guy) and ‘YOU can drive a stick’ (HS boy whom I gave a ride home to). We bought the last one in 1986 - can’t afford them (if you can find ‘em) now.
Such a shame.
ok- first sentence - it was in HS that I owned my FIRST one. Oops
My mom gave up on trying to drive a stick, mainly because she was taught how in an old VW, the kind where you had to have gorilla arms to ram the thing into reverse. That’s a shame, because modern ones are so smooth and easy.
I like both and frankly around town I do like the lazy slush box. I have a celica with a 5 speed but also an Intrepid with said slush box. Why have to choose,own both.
BTW, Have you found the perfect car to replace the Saturn yet DREW??Ok - I learned to drive a stick on a Camaro Z-28 with a power clutch. Boyfriend swore if I could manage that I could drive any stick.
He was wrong. I’ve driven a VW 3 times and I could not get my brothers bug out of the garage (1st one), embarrassed myself and risked a breathalyzer (or whatever they did way back in mid-70s CA) by walking back into the liquor store and asking if someone could put the car I borrowed into reverse (2nd one) and finally after my stupid ex couldn’t be bothered to take our Audi to the shop (it was literally across the street from his Unit (in Germany)) - and the head gasket blew - my nice neighbor let me drive their VW to a college class that night - I parked it in a place no one could park in front of me - so I could pull out without having to put it into reverse (3rd and last VW)
My fav stick was my best friend’s MGB - I tooled around Lawton OK at 50 mph in it - such a sweet little car - until her husband actually killed it by putting diesel in it (he had attempted to kill it twice before in accidents). He drove a Chevy station wagon of some sort (I called it the shovey) that was a diesel - he always worried I would put regular gas in it. My friend asked that I not laugh in his face about it.
Our little Olds Firenza (last stick we owned) we got up to speeds where the speedometer was actually starting over again on the autobahn. The car mags might have called it the worst car made that year (86) - but I’d give good money to have that type of car again. It went until it literally fell apart. And that was even years after it’s time in Germany.
Still really leaning towards the Mazda3 Rich. It seems to be well made and well engineered, has 50% more power than my old Saturn but gets the same mpg, plus it rides lots better and has loads more interior room. Oh, and it can come with every modern bit of gee-whiz out there. The back-up camera thingy is awesome. It handles quite well, and with the stick and the 185hp 2.5 it will be downright zippy. No, not a street racer, but enough zoom-zoom to make driving real fun.
If Mazda ever brings out a Mazdaspeed version with a turbo on this 2.5 engine, it’s going to be seriously bad ass. 300hp under the hood and this car would be a missile.
