I was in high school, and bought my buddys old winter beater a 89 Jetta GLI.
The car didn’t run at all for reasons unknown, and I paid 100 bucks for it.
My buddy lived in rochester, we used his dads ford escape to tow the jetta from roc to the buf, lol.
I had it fixed at some shop, and got it running.
My dad was the one who showed me how to drive a stick.
This jetta had a glasspack exhaust on it, and my dad was pretty rusty at driving stick, so he would rev it up and dump the clutch alot.
I learned on that thing after shaking so violently my dad said ‘jesus christ i don’t want to go through the windshield’.
It took about two solid days to get a feel for it, and the first time i went out on my own i was shaking.
I got pretty good at it, I drove that car for like a year.
Then let my brother learn on it, he promptly demolished the clutch and the syncros in one day of learning.
We had to push that shitty car up ellicott creek road into raintree apartments. I put it up on some jetta site, and some kid drove up from batavia and gave me 100 for it.
My brothers first car with a stick was a 89 Thunderbird SC. The owner was an avid SC nut, he put a dual friction clutch in it, and just rebuilt the gearbox, redline oil, etc.
The car was pristine, and owned by an enthusiast who covered the car inside.
We bought the car in ohio, my brother was adament about driving the car away from the guys house for some reason. He was really shitty at driving stick, so I did the test drive for him, etc. So he stalls the car backing it out of the guys driveway, then dumps the clutch leaving rubber in the street in front of his house. The entire time the guy is cringing on his front porch, it was the funniest thing ever.
My girlfriend refuses to learn, my next vehicle will have a stick in it. It forces you to be more attentive to driving, and safer. Not just blindly cruising around and jamming on the brakes. I never mind driving a stick, even in traffic.
