James Wrote:
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> It's unlikely my
> daughter will ever even need to learn to drive a
> manual. There's no point anymore, it's obsolete
> technology.
But it does get better gas mileage, assuming you don't drive like a hot-rodder. I remember my dad fuming in the 1970's because to get a pickup (for farm work, not recreation) with a standard transmission was a special order and cost more.
> Speaking of obsolete, years back I got to drive a
> replica model T. Wow. The gas pedal was a lever
> on the steering column like a tractor might have
> and the transmission was worked with the pedals on
> the floor. I wouldn't want one, in black or any
> other color. I suppose it's an acquired taste.
My maternal grandmother (died in 1950) learned to drive on a Model T and never did learn to drive a standard transmission.
My father's three comments about Model T's:
1) Only car he ever drove you could shift into reverse at 40 mph and ruin the tranny
2) you could go through water higher than the floorboards and not stall the engine.
3) going up steep hills backwards was a pain.
My maternal grandfather, who moved to the Salt Rive Valley in '41, after mom got out of High School & went off to college, had one in the 1950's that he kept for backcountry trips. Mom was visiting once in the mid '50's and jumped in it to run some errands, got into downtown(such as it was before AC) Pheonix and discovered the brakes didn't work. Grampa just used reverse to stop.
To put some RR, if NNG, topic into this: Mom used to tell stories about riding from Ames, Iowa to Pheonix to visit her parents while she was in college during the war. Sometimes CRI&P/SP, sometimes one of the many roads to KC then Santa Fe All the Way. Wish I'd gotten her to sit down with a recorder and tell some of them again.
Hank
