16 replies to this topic

[mab01uk]

Not seen this topic discussed much before, so I thought the article below was worth a read (see extract and link below). All my daily driver 'family cars' have been Autos in recent years but I do also still have a manual 2002 R50 MINI and of course a manual classic Mini. However more and more younger people I know passed their test in an auto and are unable to drive a manual, even if they wanted to and apparently only 14% of new cars sold are now manual.

Manual cars make for better drivers - (Sean Thomas - The Telegraph 4/8/2026)
"Not only is driving a manual more intense, it is also, in some ways, mechanically superior: lighter, simpler, cheaper to fix. 
On top of that, manual driving is way more cinematic. Consider Steve McQueen rattling the gearbox like a machine gun in Bullitt, or the Minis snarling through Turin in The Italian Job, or the Sweeney doing doughnuts round the London docks. 
And yet, despite all this: manual is dying. This week’s figures show nearly 30 per cent of British driving tests are taken in automatics, up from 4 per cent in 2008. Manuals accounted for 55 per cent of new cars sold in 2019. This year, they account for less than 14 per cent. A generation is acquiring licences that legally forbid them from driving stick-shift.
Soon nobody will know the tiny, garlanded triumphs of the gearbox: the perfect hill start, the double declutch, the snarly machine obeying hand and foot in concert. Instead, we shall glide about in humming pods that bong at us to have a coffee, or stay in lane. 
The loss of the gearstick is also a parable. As machines take over human tasks, we will forget how to do them. Think how calculators killed long division. Think how sat nav killed map-reading.
Next, self-driving cars will kill driving altogether, and after that AI will take over the maths, the writing, the coding, the music-making. The machines will be better and we will turn into purposeless blobs. It’s not an appetising prospect, so I intend to resist. Tomorrow I’ve got a Mazda booked on a car share, for a run to the garden centre. If you see some delusional old geezer racing around Crouch End, madly shifting gears like he’s North London’s McQueen, that’s me."
https://archive.ph/qFoac

 

[stoneface]

Half the issue is many cars are now only available in Automatic. I assume it allows the manufacturer to dictate the power delivery so engines aren't over stressed etc.

I have no facts to base this on other than when looking for a decent car with good towing ability and AWD most options were automatic.

Is there such a thing as a manual electric car?

I recently brought my first Automatic and don't like it much. After 4 months already thinking of trading it in.

[Ethel]

I suppose all electric cars can equally be considered manual or automatic.

 

They have their own dividing line over regenerative braking control.

[68+86auto]

You've got to realise most people are dumb. Even if they "can" drive a manual, it doesn't mean they understand what they are doing. One example is a coworker bought a new car a few years ago and insisted on a manual. The new car was telling him to shift up and he didn't understand why it wanted him in fifth as he was only doing a certain speed. He'd obviously learnt in a four speed and associated gears with certain speeds. Because he doesn't need to go faster, he doesn't understand the need for a higher gear.

 

There are many people who can't even operate an auto correctly!

[Rubbershorts]

I suppose a consequence of this is less people being interested in an old manual classic in the future. Well, not uninterested, but unable to drive one. Daz.

Edited by Rubbershorts, 05 August 2026 - 01:29 PM.

[mab01uk]

I suppose a consequence of this is less people being interested in an old manual classic in the future. Well, not uninterested, but unable to drive one. Daz.

 

Maybe as a result there will be an increase in interest in any original Mini Automatics that remain unconverted to manual...and a demand for good Mini auto engine/transmissions to convert the manual ones back to auto! 

 

The Prototype Mini Automatic in 1962:-

https://www.theminif...automatic-1962/

Edited by mab01uk, 05 August 2026 - 02:50 PM.

[68+86auto]

I also know owners of manual cars who clearly don't even understand the two gears on a drill. They put it into low gear to install M2.5 screws into computer parts.

 

If they can't even get that right, how are they going to drive a car properly?

 

 

Auto or manual, it doesn't matter as people are just dumb.

 

 

There was a post somewhere the other day about someone choosing a car to buy and they didn't even know what a transmission is. They had no idea so thought a transmission fault was no issue.

Edited by 68+86auto, 06 August 2026 - 03:49 AM.

[Steam]

Here in Vic, Aus, pass the test in a Auto, and after 3 years you get to lose the P plates and are able to drive any car including a manual.
Auto cars were always much more prevalent over here than in Britain, when I left UK in 80s there were way more manuals, autos were rare, in Aus the opposite was true.
As for making you a better driver, yeah Naa, not buying that. The piece of advice I gave my kids when they got there licence was to suppose everyone else on the road is a lousy driver!!

[mab01uk]

Here in Vic, Aus, pass the test in a Auto, and after 3 years you get to lose the P plates and are able to drive any car including a manual.
Auto cars were always much more prevalent over here than in Britain, when I left UK in 80s there were way more manuals, autos were rare, in Aus the opposite was true.
As for making you a better driver, yeah Naa, not buying that. The piece of advice I gave my kids when they got there licence was to suppose everyone else on the road is a lousy driver!!

 

I think autos were rarer in the UK back in the day partly because they were a more expensive option when buying a new car and also because used car buyers worried that they were more complex and expensive to repair when compared to a manual gearbox. Local independent garages and DIY mechanics were also much more familiar with cars with clutches and gearboxes. Also small cars like Minis with less powerful engines lost a lot of their edge in performance and economy with an auto transmission.

A few years back CVT auto transmission was promoted by many car manufacturers (including the first generation of the R50 MINI), they proved to be unreliable and expensive to repair and now the cars still running with CVT are practically worthless and scrapped at the first sign of faults...

Some of the latest Dual Clutch transmissions also can have expensive or terminal faults after the manufacturer warranty runs out. I recently bought a used F60 MINI Countryman and decided to buy one with a conventional auto transmission, made before BMW introduced a Dual Clutch type Auto to the model range from 2018 on....

Edited by mab01uk, 06 August 2026 - 10:56 AM.

[Ethel]

I'm not sure it matters at all now.

 

Certainly, in the Mini's era, a manual could teach you more mechanical sympathy so you could make better use of a manual or automatic.

Stuff like fuel injection & programmed ignition already compensates for bad gear selection anyway. If you haven't got a throttle cable, you're only making suggestions to the engine management anyway.

 

This topic prompted me to have a nosy at the implications for the big stuff. New trucks are virtually all automatics of some sort or another. I learned you're likely to do your trucker test by flicking the same go switch and whatever your car licence said will carry over on to whether you're allowed to try and crunch your way into a crawler gear on an ancient Leyland or Bedford.

[Ethel]

 

Here in Vic, Aus, pass the test in a Auto, and after 3 years you get to lose the P plates and are able to drive any car including a manual.
Auto cars were always much more prevalent over here than in Britain, when I left UK in 80s there were way more manuals, autos were rare, in Aus the opposite was true.
As for making you a better driver, yeah Naa, not buying that. The piece of advice I gave my kids when they got there licence was to suppose everyone else on the road is a lousy driver!!

 

I think autos were rarer in the UK back in the day partly because they were a more expensive option when buying a new car and also because used car buyers worried that they were more complex and expensive to repair when compared to a manual gearbox. Local independent garages and DIY mechanics were also much more familiar with cars with clutches and gearboxes. Also small cars like Minis with less powerful engines lost a lot of their edge in performance and economy with an auto transmission.

A few years back CVT auto transmission was promoted by many car manufacturers (including the first generation of the R50 MINI), they proved to be unreliable and expensive to repair and now the cars still running with CVT are practically worthless and scrapped at the first sign of faults...

Some of the latest Dual Clutch transmissions also can have expensive or terminal faults after the manufacturer warranty runs out. I recently bought a used F60 MINI Countryman and decided to buy one with a conventional auto transmission, made before BMW introduced a Dual Clutch type Auto to the model range from 2018 on....

 

Stop start maneuvering was more stressful too. There's something intuitive about rolling under nothing but inertia, something EVs lack too.

[Icey]

It’s an old adage but if you want to improve driving, make everyone spend a few months riding a motorbike.

There are plenty of idiots on 2 wheels but it really does make you far more able to anticipate and react to other drivers doing stupid things, simple self preservation!

[Shooter63]

I totally agree with Icey here, I believe all potential new drivers should be made to ride a motorbike as part of the eventual car licence. As for the " manual drivers make better drivers " I'm not sure,  I've seen some totally s##t drivers in manual cars and I doubt giving them an auto would improve matters greatly. My daily is a breathed on 3.0 BMW with over 600ft/lb of torque, it would need to be a hefty old manual gearbox and clutch to hold that but the 8 speed auto takes it in its stride. If I remember right at one point Peugeot/Renult offered a hot hatch in manual or auto, the auto was quicker to 60. In days gone by autos weren't particularly good if you were hooning about, but today you can go barrelling into a corner hard on the brakes, come out the other side, nail it and the gearbox will be in the correct gear, if you have used the paddles wrong, it just says " don't take the p##s " and sorts it out. 

Obviously both the minis in the family are manual and I wouldn't have it any other way until my knee eventually explodes. The funny thing is, sometimes I try to change gear in the auto but never forget to in the manual. 

 

Shooter

[Ethel]

Often thought the same about HGV.  Not only would they gain an appreciation for the space and anticipation big vehicles need, they'd also get a decent view of some idiot car drivers putting a lot of futile effort in to achieving not much when the roads are busy.

[68+86auto]

Here in Vic, Aus, pass the test in a Auto, and after 3 years you get to lose the P plates and are able to drive any car including a manual.
Auto cars were always much more prevalent over here than in Britain, when I left UK in 80s there were way more manuals, autos were rare, in Aus the opposite was true.
As for making you a better driver, yeah Naa, not buying that. The piece of advice I gave my kids when they got there licence was to suppose everyone else on the road is a lousy driver!!

 

Here in QLD it is odd.

If you do the test in an auto, there is no way to change it other than doing the test again in a manual car OR a HR truck with a non-synchromesh gearbox. Even moving for example to NSW where there are no restrictions, if you change a QLD auto licence to NSW, they add an auto condition.

If someone with a CA (car auto) licence does a HR (heavy rigid - over 8t) manual truck test (with synchromesh), they still only end up with a HR auto licence. If someone with a C (car manual) licence does a HR test in an auto truck, they still get a HR manual (syncromesh) licence even though the CA driver has clearly done a more difficult test.

Edited by 68+86auto, 06 August 2026 - 10:53 PM.