hey, calling my (ex) JEEP a fake? grr.....
I wish my dad decided to get a stick trasmission put in when my sister blew the engine, that was a sad day
but it survived, it even did battle against my friend's Monte Carlo and faced an evil fake brand new truck, a surburban and won , little dent to jeep and jacked up front end to the Burb'  , not to be proud of my misadventures but how Jeeps are tougher than toe nails 

on a regular car, and especially a sports/high proformance car i would agree that it is a fake expiriance

for a new truck or an suv it is almost impossible to find a standard transmition

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I agree with you, but the driving school I went to, should choose more wisely in their choice of stick shift cars, they decided to buy a Mitsubishi 3000GT, a 2 seat sports car for those without the money for a Corvette, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Vipers......etc

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bah to the jeep with an auto tranny statement

I don't think you'd want a truck with an automatic tranny, unless they have some sort of over ride for it, image going down hill with the rig fully loaded and you ride the brakes because you cant engine brake...ehhh wouldn't have brakes too long

whenever I tried to get that thing moving smoothly, I thought I was going to launch it straight into the vehicle ahead

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An automatic transmission & 44t behind you is a death warrant!

Besides, manual transmissions are vastly tougher than the auto's and tend to outlive by a ratio of 3 to 1 ! (My local bus company uses automatic Scanias, they frequently blow transmission's something you just don't do with a conventional box (despite split & half-split gearing!)

A few years back, I owned a rather battered 2.9litre 24Valve Cosworth engine powered Ford Granada/Scorpio, it was very quick and scary into bends unless you used the transmission as a "clutchless manual" - this great idea lasted about 3 months into my ownership of the car and it duly blew up the gearbox....

£300 (including fitting) followed by £300(!) to re-map the engine management system correctly to deal with a manual transmission (the car was never built with a manual box, thus fuelling was wrong etc) resulted in a vastly quicker car better fuel consuption and above all else, strong engine braking when entering corners.

Short of losing a leg, I'll never buy another auto as long as I hold my licence.

Anyway, manual transmissions are a doddle once you learn not to use the clutch.

Paul.

no,don't do that,craig. if you don't learn to drive with manual transmission now,you'll never learn it.
i for myself am happy to drive a car with manual transmission,since it keeps you busy instead of just accelerating and braking. how boring.

a hint: grab your mom and her car on a sunday and let her drive you to a parking area (in front of a big supermarket or so). you change seats there and now you can practice shifting or other things that you need to improve.

thats awfully goofy, learn on a stick shift before going to something more simple?

now if they put you in a 777 before a cessna, hey, Im moving to England

like i said, if you get your license in an automatic you arnt allowed to drive manual, which means you are stuck for rental cars as they are almost always manuals, and finding a good automatic car here is difficult. If i learn in a manual, i can drive both when i pass. then its personal preferance which i want to drive.

lol i consider it a sucess if people understand half of what i say. Certainly more than i understand

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I agree with semi's being automatic because of the many gears and such...(I've never seen an automatic semi..)

But for a smaller truck such as the ones that I and many other people drive from point A to Point B, or use to haul stuff from here to there really should be stick if you ask me...

I prefere the security of Stick shift  especially when driving a large vehicle add to that a decent retarder and/or an exhaust brake then I'm in hog heaven.
However the exception to this is when I'm having to stop and start a lot (Bus driving or Bin collection.) then nothing beats an automatic or semi auto gearbox. As for cars I've never been a fan of automatics especially in high performance cars .....IT AINT REAL DRIVING unless you've got complete control.

Jared,you shouldn't use your telephone while driving this can really be dangerous. Do you have a law that forbids using telephones in the car in the States? We in Germany have. if you get caught by the police, you'll be poorer by 50€s (~60 US $).