The end of the manual gearbox - Blackbourn 475

By: Rob Blackbourn

Date: 28.03.2023

While Rob once had a thing for the classic Winchester .30-30, his enduring passion is about levers that change gears

At Friday lunch we tend to chat about less alarming trends than the existential threat EVs pose to our beloved classics – after all we meet at our fave Vietnamese for pleasure, not pain. One recurring topic is the growing scarcity of manual-trans cars in the showrooms of local dealers.

The writing was more than on the wall by July, 2021 – it was in the Melbourne daily The Age. The confronting (and sad, IMHO) article revealed that the following month would see the last new ‘manual’ Corollas arriving at Australian ports, before adding that new Corvettes and Supras were strictly ‘auto only’ with manual Porsches becoming quite rare. It went on to point out that only 10 per cent of Victorian driving-licence applicants were opting for ‘manual’ licences, down from 42 per cent 15 years earlier. A large driving-school operator was quoted as saying, "(You’re) lucky to see one driver in 20 in a manual."

The Fergie was a bit tricky

The theme of Australia’s increasingly manual-phobic motorists also pops up on travel sites with comments of dismay about the limited availability of automatic rental cars in Europe and UK. This issue took on a name and a face for me a few months back when a young friend was planning a holiday in Greece with her mates. She was to be the driver, and to her credit she decided to treat the challenge as an opportunity. Being a bit daunted by the prospect of picking up three-pedal skills in her dad’s 80-Series LandCruiser she asked me to help her out using my wife’s manual 2005 Corolla. Happy to oblige, I admit to feeling just a bit disappointed when it didn’t happen after a manual-licence driver joined the young Greece-bound gang.

A different take on the "No manuals for me!" trend among young Aussie drivers was the recent report of an abandoned car-jacking attempt. Apparently the pair of would-be bandits jumped out of the car and fled on foot once they spotted the gearstick and clutch pedal. Perhaps a "Manual Car" sticker alongside the ubiquitous "Baby On Board" message might deter car thieves…

Gear levers and I have been firm friends since my toddler days when I loved doing the pretend-driver thing at home standing on the driver’s seat of the family car, holding the steering wheel and tugging at the gear lever. However, one afternoon when I was seven or eight my ongoing lever-love suffered a minor setback. Aboard a ‘Grey Fergie’ front-end loader parked for the night at a building site near home, my first tractor experience was going well as I sussed out the Ferguson’s unfamiliar layout. While I had moved on by that age from making ‘Brrmm Brrmm’ noises and swinging the steering wheel back and forth, I was still keen for some gearstick action. By then full-bottle about ‘H-patterns’ and numbered gears, I moved through the ratios in numerical sequence before spotting a gear-position labelled ‘S’ – No, not ‘R’, it was ‘S’. Still wondering what it was all about I shoved the gear-lever into ‘S’ anyway. The tractor’s engine immediately started cranking over! Who knew ‘S’ stood for ‘Start’? Unaware that the ignition needed to be turned on before the thing would actually fire up, I abandoned ship and hightailed it home.

A six speed fun machine

With that troubling moment well behind me I spent my teenage years grabbing all opportunities to actually drive and operate every petrol/Diesel-powered vehicle and earthmoving machine I could. During Uni days I used that experience in what we now call a gig-economy role – as a casual truckie. Old Internationals, Fords and Bedfords with Eaton two-speed diffs behind four-speed crash boxes took me to the next level on the levers. Many blokes just left the diff in ‘Low’ as they worked up through the gears, finally flicking it into ‘High’ as an overdrive on 4th-gear. Not me – I was in "split-shifting" heaven: Low-First; High-First; Low-Second; High-Second; Low-Third; High-Third; Low-Fourth; High-Fourth. Hallelujah! And then back down the sequence for hills…

I regret never having the chance to drive a truck fitted with a three-speed "Joey box" behind a five-speeder – when I scored a lift in one I was stunned at the driver’s skill at juggling the levers, often just getting the revs right and avoiding the clutch pedal. Amazing! But he wouldn’t give me a driving lesson. Can’t imagine why…
If this stuff presses your buttons find "Twin Stick Pappy" on YouTube.

From Unique Cars #475, February 2023

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