Drivers Look to Stick Shifts As They Lose Control of Cars

Drivers Look to Stick Shifts
As They Lose Control of Cars

By JONATHAN WELSH and DANIEL COSTELLO
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Glenn Konze's new car automatically keeps him from skidding, turns up the music when he goes faster and even tells him whether to turn left or right. And the gears? He'll shift those himself, thanks.

"There are a lot of things I can't control -- but a manual transmission, I can," says Mr. Konze, a Dallas computer programmer who learned to drive a stick last year. His biggest frustration: "First gear."

That grinding noise you hear? It's the sound of Americans switching back to stick shifts. At a time when computerized cars seem to be making all the decisions, more drivers are seeking out an unlikely sphere of influence: the gearshift. After more than a decade of decline, the percentage of domestic cars sold with manual transmissions rose 10% last year, prompting a slew of makers from Lexus to Infiniti to offer the forgotten third pedals in more models for wannabe hot-rodders and nostalgic boomers. Even high-end Cadillacs, which haven't had sticks since the 1950s, just got them.

And don't worry if a clutch intimidates you. Now showing at a dealership near you: a new breed of cars with steering-wheel buttons that "shift" gears for the uninitiated.

Granted, this uptick may be a byproduct of last fall's car-buying craze brought on by 0% financing; manual transmissions, which usually cost less than automatics, should do well in hard times. But analysts say some older buyers are clearly yearning for their "American Graffiti" years, while younger ones have picked up the clutch bug from race-car video games. Ironically enough, the low-tech standard transmission is also emerging as a symbol of driving chic: After all, for years, primarily cool European sports cars had them. "It's a sort of glamorous clutch envy," says Mark Patrick, curator of the National Automotive History Collection in Detroit.

But no sooner are people climbing behind the wheel than they're remembering why they abandoned these things in the first place. In case you've forgotten, a clutch can be tough to master -- with plenty of unexpected jerking, grating and stalling. Safety First Driving School in South Brunswick, N.J., started offering lessons on stick two years ago, and says first-timers generally need three sessions. How tough is it? Most drivers have to wait until lesson No. 2 to venture beyond the parking lot.

Stalling and Lurching

But don't even mention parking to Alix Sapot. When the Los Angeles-based actress was learning to parallel-park her new Ford Explorer last year, she repeatedly popped the clutch and lurched into cars parked ahead and behind. "It's going to cost me a fortune to fix all of the dents," she says. Keith Duross, too, thought it would be a snap, so he bought a new Hyundai with a manual transmission and spent the next four weeks stalling on hills and sniffing burnt clutch. "I'd get to work and I'd be sweating so much my co-workers would say, 'Hey, do you need a Xanax?'" says the Los Angeles advertising associate. "But I just had to learn." [Stick Shift]

All of this is a big change from just a few years ago, when it looked like the clutch-and-stick would be relegated to the junk heap of 20th-century history. Back in 1950, half the cars sold had manual transmissions, but by the year 2000, despite a few up years, the figure had plummeted to 8.7%, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank. As demand shrank, entire model lines by companies from Ford to Volvo stopped coming with sticks.

But news of the stick's demise was greatly exaggerated: In a subtle but sure rebound, the share of domestic cars with clutches rose to 9.6% last year. Subaru's sales of manuals, meanwhile, jumped by more than one-third in 2001. While overall sales -- including imports -- haven't turned the corner yet, economic forecaster DRI-WEFA expects manuals to go from 9.3% of all passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. this year to 9.7% in 2003. (Its forecast for 2005: 12% will have sticks.)

And already, auto makers are putting sticks in more kinds of cars, about 130 models in all by next year. Many are entry-level hot rods for twentysomethings -- low-riding, pumped up models like the Pontiac Vibe, Ford Focus and Honda Civic Si. And for the boomer who's bored with cruising in comfort, Lexus just started offering sticks in its IS 300 sedan, and Acura is putting them in its fast CL coupes after two years of saying it wouldn't. Says Jay Spenchian, brand manager for the Cadillac CTS: "Having a manual was a no-brainer."

Those who drive sticks aren't shy about pointing out the advantages. Sure, they're usually cheaper to buy, get better mileage and cost less to fix when they break (typical bill for repairing a blown clutch: about $500). But really, it's all about bragging rights that come with starting on a hill without rolling backwards, or popping the clutch on the fly to start a rig with a dead battery. "Automatics are for girls," says Kim Lampe, a 41-year-old furniture restorer from Pompton Plains, N.J., who drove them for years before learning to "stir" the gears. "You're considered more accomplished if you can drive a stick."

Nonsense, says Chris Daley. He had his first shifting experience on a friend's car a few years ago -- and still hasn't recovered. "I felt like an idiot sitting at green lights trying to restart the car, and then hopping away like the Easter Bunny," says the Web-development company CEO from Mountain View, Calif., who nonetheless drives one now and then. "I still hate driving a stick in traffic."

Push the Button

So imagine how the people behind him feel. Patrick Sears says there's nothing worse than being stuck in back of someone who hasn't mastered their manual -- people who take forever to move at a light, stall in traffic, or worse, drive with a cellphone in their left hand. "If they have one hand on the stick and the other on the phone," says the engineer from Holyoke, Mass., "how are they holding onto the wheel?"

Culture Shift

Below, a few of the current crop of cars that offer manual transmissions.

Car	List Price	Comment
Acura CL	$30,380	Two years ago, Acura said this fast coupe wouldn't come with a stick. But now it's giving in to griping customers and offering a six-speed manual.
Cadillac CTS	$29,350	Cadillac flirted briefly with a low-budget stick in the '80s, but this year, for the first time in 50 years, a high-end Caddy will have one.
Chevrolet Corvette	$41,210	'Vette drivers are on the stick: 45% of Chevy's flagship sports cars were sold with a six-speed manual last year, compared with 40% in 2000 and 30% in 1996.
Chrysler Sebring	$25,115	A new chassis and more-powerful engine turned a mushy, retired-in-Florida convertible into a more muscular ride. The next step: Chrysler just added a five-speed.
Ferrari Modena	$154,000	Too clutzy for a clutch pedal? This Italian lets you have the sound of shifting -- and some of the feel -- all by flipping a paddle on the steering wheel.
Jaguar X-Type	$29,950	Believe it or not, this is Jag's first stick-shift car since the mid-1970s. It's about to offer a manual on the larger S-Type sedan, too.
Ford Focus	$12,470	The Focus comes standard with a five-speed, partly to please young people who soup them up. A higher-powered "SVT" version has six gears and no automatic option.
Chevrolet Silverado	$22,982	Another kind of gear inflation: When Chevy rolled out its line of "heavy duty" pickups last year, it went up from a five-speed to a six. Very macho.

Of course, for those who just can't get the hang of a stick, there's hope. Porsche, BMW, Lincoln and Acura all have systems (they have names like Tiptronic and SportShift) that let the driver change gears at the push of a button. While these are basically automatic transmissions, the next generation has a genuine gearbox and clutch that feels and sounds like it's shifting up and down. The catch? There's no clutch pedal, but a computer with perfect clutch timing. Ferrari and Aston Martin have these -- you shift by flipping a paddle on the steering column -- while BMW and Toyota just came out with similar systems. While it won't fool anyone in the passenger seat, it sounds pretty good from the street.

But for now, most people who want to shift still have to do it the hard way. And sometimes, as the folks at Lincolnia United Methodist Church learned, it's very hard indeed. A woman learning to drive a stick in the parking lot of the Alexandria, Va., church last August popped the clutch, jumped a curb -- and slid 85 feet into a brick pillar. The car was totaled and the church sustained $15,000 in damage -- and had to cancel its Sunday services. (The woman, whom Fairfax County Police say was not cited, could not be reached for comment.)

"We have signs up now that say 'No Practice Driving,'" says church administrator Betty Ware. "But we were thinking of adding another that says 'Especially If You're Learning on a Standard.'"



February 22, 2002