Here is some good news for us over a certain age who continue to drive our manual transmission Lotus cars: Car & Driver Manual Transmission. Here in the States, more and more drivers don’t know how to drive a manual transmission. Sad, but true. However, a bright spot in our family is that my daughter just taught my son-in-law how to drive one. 
2 Likes
For my daily modern driver I always had a manual, they were always interesting cars, some were “top of the range” some were a bit lower on the desirability scale, but they were always great to drive.
In 2021 I leased a MK8 Golf Gti, after all, you have to tick the box that you owned or drove a Golf Gti for a year or two at least once in your life… BUT! they no longer came with a manual gearbox, DSG is the way to go said the guys from Wolfsburg, you will love it!
I’m sorry but I hated it, and I loved it in equal measures. My left leg had nothing to do and I had a bout of Sciatica that possibly was caused by this. My left arm (I drive RHD cars) had very little to do apart from try to stab at the stupid infotainment system that was almost impossible to navigate once on the move.
The totally stupid DSG gearbox was always changing gear (there were 8 of them + reverse), mostly at the wrong time, and even if you ovverode the system using the Flappy Paddles it would change gear for you if you left it too long between changes… FFS, I was just setting up for that corner to power through in 4th and you changed up to 5th on the approach WTF!
When the Golf contract ended, I very nearly bought a Hyundai i20N, a lovely 6 speed manual firecracker, but I ended up with a Toyota Corolla GR Sport that isnt quite as annoying as the Golf GTi, but still auto albeit CVT and electric that does amazing gas/fuel mileage. I,m now used to driving automatic and quite like it especially in traffic and around town, but it was noticeable on my 200 mile trip in the Elan +2 last week that my muscle memory and perhaps cognitive memory has deteriorated for changing gear with a stick shift, for instance I almost stalled a couple of times when I hit traffic as I forgot to depress the clutch when coming to a halt.
The solution is to use the Elans more
4 Likes
I like your solution!
2 Likes
The answer is always Elan.
(I think that’s fair use…)
2 Likes