first manual car you ever drove?

My 34 5 window.

 

65 chevy 2 with a 6 and three i the tree

 

1967 IH Scout 800. Stock 266 ci V8 and a 4 speed and 2 spd transfer case.

 

Mid-90's Mitsubishi Panel Van that my section had when I was in the Air Force over in the middle east in 2003. I'd never driven stick before so they took me out on an abandoned part of the runway and that's where I learned.

 

1956 chevy pick up, it took 5 min and 4 black marks in the drive way just to get going. Me and the old man still talk about that.

 

ot...91 isuzu

 

'94 z28

 

40 Ford pickup.It was my Grandfathers

 

1967 Camaro

 

may not qualify. At 2 1/2 years, Mom left me in the 1941 ford while she had coffee with a friend. I still remember getting my feet thru the steering wheel and rocking side to side. fumbling with the shift lever till I bumped it out of gear.
I remember this because the ride down the hill and those two white doors with green trim. blowing apart as I went thru them.
back then it was my fault, not moms for leaving me there. I believe in safety but hate all the crap I have to go thru to take the great grand kids for ice cream
the first automatic was about 1954

 

Learned to drive in my dads 61 meteor wagon. big block 3 spd standard. Was a tank but hauled ass for a tank.

 

I guess the very first manual I ever drove was schoolmate's car, he let me drive it home, it was a...I dunno, a Nissan or a Toyota or a HondYuki or a Datsun-ota or some damn thing. I can't remember the make, but I do remember I drove it all the way home without taking off the emergency brake (and he forgot to tell me!).

The other car I learned on, probably about 1987 when I was 17, was much more memorable. It was the same 1963 Galaxie 500 R-code my family has owned since new and still owns today. With a heavy clutch that felt like a Nautilus machine and a 3.00:1 rear end it was no easy task at that age! Today I practice heel-and-toe, double clutching and rev matching...even in the Galaxie. My wife has learned to love a manual too (O happy day! that I taught her to drive a stick), and says she'll never go back to automatics.

 

my dads '56 big window. photo is from a few years later, after I put some wheels on it and took off the hood emblems.

 

When I learnt to drive in the early 1960s there were very few automatic transmission cars in this part of the world. I learnt to drive a Ferguson TEA tractor in about 1962 and the cars we owned at the time were a 1934 Buick Series 40 (3 on the floor), a 1937 Austin 7 Ruby (4 on the floor) and a 1956 Australian-built DeSoto Diplomat Custom (with the 230 cid flathead 6 and 3 on the tree), which was really a 1953-4 Plymouth with teeth. I took my driving test in 1967 in a 1966 Commer 1500 van - it had a variation of the same 1725cc engine as the Hillman Minx and Sunbeam Alpine

For a while in the 1970s I owned a 1962 Rambler Classic Cross Country wagon with the aluminium 6 in it. It was right hand drive from the factory but the column had just been shifted over complete so had right hand shift as well. The overdrive knob was still in the same place where it would be for LHD. It was more accessable to the passenger than the driver. It was an early production car (number 246 off the line) and had supposedly been shown at the London Motor Show at Earls Court - I guess in October 1961 - where a NZ guy bought it and shipped it home.

The first automatic I guess I drove was my grandfather's 1968 Austin 1300 that he owned in the early 1970s. It had the AP transmission - quite a different unit from most autos.

 

Mine was way OT. My Dad's '87 Toyota MR2.

 

My Dads 1974 Duster with a 3 speed on the column........he needed a clutch in the thing after I drove it for 3 days.

Billy

 

1954 Chevy 1/2 Ton pickup.. Blue Flame 235 4 speed truck transmission. 8 years old... Been in the family since new and all original.

 

three on the tree 73 AMC Gremlin

 

1946 Willys Jeep in 1958.

 

A buddies; '71 VW Squareback.
Bought myself a 4-speed Corvair Corsa not long after.

 

'65 MGB ....baby blue.

 

My first stick shift car was the 1955 Studebaker station wagon (three on the tree) which was the delivery vehicle for the family owned drug store (remember those???) I worked for when I was in high school.

 

Every car I've ever driven or owned - you can't get a proper full driving licence in the UK unless you learn to drive in a manual transmission car.