The Demise of the Stick Shift Is Accelerating

[Standardshifter]

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/28/national/28STIC.html

May 28, 2001

The Demise of the Stick Shift Is Accelerating

By PETER T. KILBORN

LEN BURNIE, Md., May 26 — With a wicked grin slicing his jaw, Curtis Preston, 38, turns up the ramp to the highway. Wham! He crushes the accelerator to the floor and holds it there. With his left foot, he pounds down the clutch. With his fist, he slams the gear shift into second, then third, then fourth.

The engine howls, then wheezes, howls and wheezes. In six seconds of a heavy-metal symphony of muscle and motion, Mr. Preston's red 1986 Chrysler Laser hits 60. In 14 seconds, he goes a quarter of a mile.

"When you used that clutch in my '61 Impala, you ended up with a calf that looked like Popeye's," Mr. Preston said. "I believe that rolling a four-speed is an art form. It's something you have to think about. It's not God-given."

But the Laser with its manual transmission is a 20th-century artifact, and so might be most rubber- peeling Popeyes.

The true clutch-equipped, stick- shifting manual transmission — even today called the standard transmission — has shrunk to a mere toy. Six decades since the debut of the Oldsmobile Hydra-Matic, the demise of the manual transmission has accelerated, forced along by stop-and- go highways, brutal commutes, hard- to-handle cell phones and, most recently, make-believe five-speeds that do not even have clutches.

"I wouldn't say it's necessarily our objective to phase out the stick," said Matt Kester, a spokesman for General Motors Powertrain, the G.M. division that makes engines and transmissions.

"It's a cultural issue," Mr. Kester said. "It's just that much more work" to operate a stick shift.

Other developments are undermining the stick. Cars with automatic transmissions usually cost $500 to $1,000 more than stick-shift cars, but that gap is shrinking. And manual transmissions used to be peppier and more fuel efficient than their automatic counterparts. Now, automatics, governed by sophisticated computers, are burning gas more wisely. "That fuel economy penalty is largely disappearing," said Paul Taylor, chief economist at the National Automobile Dealers Association in Washington.

Hertz, Avis and National no longer carry cars with manual transmissions. State motor vehicle regulators do not require training in stick shifts, and high school driver education programs do not offer it. Some driving schools do, but they charge a premium for it.

At the extremes of the marketplace, the $9,000-to-$15,000 bare- bones low-powered cars and sporty $40,000-and-up high-performance road burners, drivers can still readily find manual transmissions.

But by last year, according to Ward's Automotive Reports, manual transmissions accounted for just 8.7 percent of cars made in the United States, down from 12.4 percent in 1996.

Two decades ago, 20 to 25 percent of all new vans had manual transmissions, the Environmental Protection Agency reports. Now none do. Ten percent of sport utility vehicles have stick shifts, compared with 40 percent of similar vehicles in 1975. Throaty Mustangs, Camaros and Trans Ams, a new Lincoln LS and a Volvo V70 have them. But they have disappeared from popular full-size cars like the Ford Taurus and the Pontiac Bonneville and from all Buicks. Last year, Chrysler dropped them from the Jeep Cherokee.

Curt Preston works at the mid- Atlantic's high temple of transmission service and repair, Glen Burnie Transmissions, a 40-year-old business on Ritchie Highway in Glen Burnie, a suburb south of Baltimore. Chain operators like Aamco are bigger, but Marvin Keyser, 72, the owner and co-founder, says his suppliers tell him the shop, with its 24 bays and 50 mechanics, is the biggest in the nation under one roof.

The mechanics here say an automatic is still no match for a stick. "You can keep control of the power better," Mr. Preston said. "You can use the engine to pull it down" — slowing the car by shifting to a lower gear rather than relying solely on the brakes and wearing them down.

"They also last a lot longer than automatics," Mr. Preston said. Repair usually entails little more than replacing a clutch, at a cost of $100 to $300. Today's much more complex electronic-controlled automatics require more work, typically costing $900 or more.

But cars with manual transmissions have declined to less than 4 percent of all those the shop sees. Even the mechanics here prefer automatics. Only 10 of the 50 drive stick shifts. One of the two who specialize in servicing sticks, Jack Bell, drives a Ford 150 pickup with an automatic transmission.

Until he bought that, he said, "I had three or four cars with sticks." But on the highway outside Baltimore, he said, "they're terrible."

"You go two feet, push the clutch, go two feet, push the clutch," he added.

The dominance of automatic transmissions is an American phenomenon, Mr. Kester of General Motors said. They have captured only 12 percent of the European market. Europeans drive cars. Americans eat, drink and live in them during ever- longer commutes. They also talk, and the impossibility of shifting, steering and dialing a cell phone has further imperiled the stick.

"The European mind-set," Mr. Kester, "is A, you can't get good mileage with an automatic, and B, only weenies drive them."

"I don't want to be stereotyping," he added, "but Europeans prefer the acoustic acceleration experience, whereas for Americans the big selling point is a quiet car."

Stop in the automobile dealerships stretched along the six lanes of Ritchie Highway, and you can feel the stick's doom. One dealer carries the Kia Rio, a bare-bones Korean car, with a manual transmission. But it appeals only to the thinnest wallets. It gets 32 miles a gallon on the highway, and at a price of $9,390, less a rebate of $500, it is the cheapest, and sparest, automobile in America.

To shoppers who come in looking for manual transmissions, Rick Melzer, a salesman at Bob Bell Ford, which also sells Korean Daewoos, said: "First I would say, `Why do you want a stick?' Sticks are popular with 16- and 18-year-old kids." But mostly for reasons of economic necessity. The least expensive car Mr. Melzer sells is a Daewoo with a stick, which goes for $9,900.

At Tate Chrysler Plymouth, nearly all the 40 Jeep Wranglers have manual transmissions. Jack Hodges, a salesman, attributes that to the car's unique appeal to young buyers who drive them on beaches — and also to their price, typically below $15,000. But once buyers get older, and are able to afford more expensive machines, Mr. Hodges said, they are happy to leave the stick behind.

He cites Chrysler's PT Cruiser, a nostalgia car with a big toothy grill and boxy rear that would not be out of place in a 50's drag race.

But there is a limit to consumers' retro impulses. The Cruisers have been flying out the door, except for one. "It's a stick shift," Mr. Hodges said, "and the only reason it's here is that it's stick shift."

Crouching like a tiger in the showroom's prime spot is a car that does have a manual transmission — of sorts. It is a $47,000 midnight blue Chrysler Prowler, a descendant of the low-slung hot rods that had manual transmissions. In a cruel twist, though, the Prowler is equipped with a technology that could spell the end of the true manual transmission.

The gearbox looks as if it has a stick. But the car has no clutch. Drivers can push the stick from gear to gear, allowing them some of the control of a manual transmission, but they can also slip it into automatic. And if they rev it up too high, the automatic kicks in and slows the engine down.

This is what Chrysler calls the AutoStick, introduced five years ago and now appearing in the company's Sebring and Stratus lines. Over the last three years, all the German cars have introduced variations — even Porsche, which stunned the hard- driving faithful three years ago when it introduced something it calls the Tiptronic. It is now offered in Audis and Volkswagens.

"What you have is a clutchless, driver-influenced transmission that you up- and downshift with the press or a button and movement of the shifter," explained James Sanfilippo, executive vice president of Automotive Marketing Consultants in Warren, Mich. "At first, dyed-in-the-wool Porschephiles wouldn't have it. But they're finding it a joy to drive."

Mr. Sanfilippo calls these transmissions "manumatics."

Now they, too, have a challenger. In its new and highly fuel-efficient Civic HX, Honda has introduced the "continuously variable transmission." "You get no sensation at all of gears changing," Mr. Sanfilippo said.

For all that, said Mr. Keyser of Glen Burnie Transmissions, there will always be a place for the manual transmission. "You'll still need them in the bigger trucks," he said.

[bushja]

I should move to Europe. I've always thought autos were for "weenies". I don't allow any food or drink in my car and the only reason I have a cell phone in the glove box is for emergencies. Hell, I don't even know my number! Well, at least I drive a European car. I think most Americans would prefer to be chauffered, they really don't enjoy driving. I really don't mind a stick even in traffic. Since you have something to do it makes the time go quicker.

[StandardShifterMz3s]

"But by last year, according to Ward's Automotive Reports, manual transmissions accounted for just 8.7 percent of cars made in the United States, down from 12.4 percent in 1996."

Was I wrong for starting this thread?
HEADLINE: What does the FUTURE hold for STICK-SHIFTS?

[coolguy]

Since you have something to do it makes the time go quicker.

I think that is exactly why a lot of Americans do some other unrelated activites while driving automatic, which is dangerous and is not supposed to be though. By the way I am American as well but most of the time I only do 1 thing at a time , including driving definitely! Multi-task can be fun and efficient but not when driving . Save your multi-tasked spirit to your workplaces (which is what I do also) .

[acadien]

autos are for weenies... driving an auto shouldnt even be called driving, i'm sure a computer could manage it... or a rock. Stick isnt more work, it's more fun... i'm bored when i'm in an automatic (hasnt happenned too often yet). i dont get why ppl need cell phones anyways (in cities), payphones are everywhere, and are cheaper.

[coolguy]

Maybe so that people can call them?