I am convinced that it is an almost impossible task to attempt to truly understand and appreciate the experience of driving an automobile without having learned to effectively operate a manual transmission. An automatic transmission simply lacks the feeling of existing with and understanding a machine that man has created.

My father had a 5-speed Ford ranger several years ago and, to be honest, I loved it. One Christmas , my gift to him was a chrome skull shift-knob whose eyes lit up red when you changed gears. It made the entire vehicle even more fantastic and, thinking about it now, since he sold the truck, I’ve been missing driving it.

I have extremely fond memories of driving in that Ranger - gearing her down and hearing the engine whinny to slow for a sharp corner, and then immediately punching the gas and running the beast quickly up 3 gears to get to top speed. It was almost a feeling of freedom. And that’s a feeling that has yet to be duplicated by a rented automatic-transmission Pontiac Pursuit, despite it’s obviously exciting name.