Quote:
Originally Posted by Engine
A) Haha, you like speedy sports cars? Only overprivileged people and rednecks enjoy those.
B) I would think that a person driving in a snowy place would appreciate a manual transmission just to haul your own ass around.
I learned to drive on an automatic but quickly converted. I had a VW Golf front wheel drive manual (1989 model) that was able to plow through over a foot of snow without any shoveling when I lived above 9000 feet. It was awesome b/c snow-shoveling sucks. I haven't owned an automatic since then. Driving in crazy weather conditions is when the control factor matters. Spinning tires is idiotic when done on purpose, let alone innocently trying to drive up a low-grade hill. Embarrassing.
However, driving in gridlock-style highway traffic in a manual transmission sucks incredibly. After a couple years of that, you learn to hate manual transmissions, especially when you destroy your clutch and have to replace it. Because then you feel stupid for paying for a new clutch just for the pain of driving through a city commute that you hate in the first place.
My next car will definitely have an automatic transmission if I have to drive through miles and miles of city gridlock (which I am very hopeful not to need to do).
|
Overpriveleged spendthrifts and rednecks are two of my favorite groups of people; when they merge into one, they create the market for such wonderful machines such as snowmobiles, jet skis, etc...
I appreciate purely practical cars, but whenever things get purely utilitarian they tend to get depressing. I'd kill for a late 70s t-top trans am, I don't give a **** if it's trashy as hell, I'd eat slim jims & spit redman into empty forties of king cobra while driving that trailer park special.
Regarding point B; my corner of Montana is semi-arid, so we only get a few feet every year, which never sticks 'round long thanks to the Chinook winds.