Stick Shift: A gear shift on a 2013 Honda Civic Coupe taken on Thursday, June 13, 2024. (Photo by Josiah Navratil/The Press)
They were once the most common transmission in Canada, only overtaken by automatic and the rise of electric vehicles. But has the stick shift met its demise?
According to Automotive Training Centres, Canadian manual car Production has gone down from 30 per cent in 1980 to 9 per cent. It is possible that the figure has only gotten lower as this stat is over five years old.
Today only a few cars, mostly sports, are available in standard with the rise of automatic and electric sports cars.
The lack of interest in learning manual transmission is noticed in driving schools.
“At my school, we get just four to five calls a year ... (asking to learn on a) manual,” said Dragoslav (Drashko) Vujanovic, founder and owner of A Proactive Driving School, which has been teaching Calgarians since 2006.
Vujanovic has been teaching driving since 1998, and says in his experience, most people wanting to learn standard are usually teenagers with European parents.
“Europeans that come here, drive manual. They (the teenagers) keep seeing that (and) maybe they want to do it.”
Vujanovic believes that driving stick is a life skill as you never know your driving situation abroad.
“If you were somewhere rural, with only a manual and there's something happening, you have to get behind the wheel and drive.”
Beverly Rutherford can relate to driving manuals in rural settings.
Growing up outside Manilla, the capital of the Philippines, Rutherford often drove long distances for her work at a resort, or to visit her mother who lived 600 kilometers away.
Rutherford learned how to drive standard in her mid 20s with the help of a neighbour. She learned in one to two weeks but had previous experience.
At Home: Beverly Rutherford in her home office on Wednesday, June 12, 2024. (Photo by Josiah Navratil/The Press)
“I was already exposed to how my brothers operated manual transmission vehicles,” said Rutherford. “So, I kind of watched them (and learned).”
The first car she ever bought was a manual Toyota Vios. It was the huge price difference that convinced her to buy manual as opposed to automatic.
“The cost was about 200,000 pesos ($5,000 CAD) difference between automatic and manual transmission.”
Despite the price difference, an automatic would have been useful when driving in Manila, the world’s most densely populated city.
"It's just the worst. You keep on pressing your brakes and then adjusting the stick and sometimes I ended up with the engine just stalling."
Now in Canada, Rutherford drives an automatic 2021 Jeep Wrangler. She says that if she had learned on automatic, she probably would haven’t learned manual later in life.
There are still some who start on automatic before learning manual.
Car meeting: Luke del Aguila sits in his 2010 Honda Civic Si taken on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. (Photo by Josiah Navratil/The Press)
Luke del Aguila learned to drive on an automatic Jeep before seeing the multiple manual cars his father drove and becoming intrigued.
Aguila purchased a 2010 Honda Civic Si through Kijiji just five months after receiving his license.
“At first, he (my father) was very hesitant for me to get a standard car. He was pushing for me to have an automatic. (I was told that) it's a lot more work. You have to learn a lot more.”
“(But I decided that I) wanted a standard car. I didn't see why I should limit my options to owning a vehicle.”
After learning with his father for about a month, Aguila could drive by himself.
As a water meter installer, he drives almost 80 kilometers daily for work and says that driving a standard has made his work more enjoyable.
“The biggest thing is that I love my car a lot already. So, getting to drive it even more and feel comfortable driving in this car has made it easier.”
Aguila’s Honda has an aftermarket exhaust system which makes the car lighter.
“Hearing my exhaust, I will have more horsepower than a regular Civic Si. So it's fun to like, legally go faster, you know... It just feels like you have a lot more control over the car, believe it or not. Sometimes like you're in traffic, I get to skirt around the different lane and toss down a gear and speed up right. I think just a lot more freedom, with it to some degree.”
Parking Lot: Tanner Bugo stands in front of a cars in a northwest Calgary parking lot on Saturday, June 8, 2024. Bugo learned to drive on a standard 2012 Honda Civic and hopes to buy his first car soon, preferably a Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla. (Photo by Josiah Navratil/The Press)
Tanner Bugo also learned how to drive on a manual Honda Civic. He learned from his mother and had some advice for new learners.
“Learn with a friend who's very experienced, don't just do it on your own and look on YouTube,” said Bugo.
He also suggested learning on automatic before switching to manual.
For the future, Vujanovic would like Canada to adopt a law that would require a test for people wishing to drive manual, like some states in Australia.
“I’d like to see more people doing manual. Especially during the winter, because if you’re in a manual, you don’t use your brake as much.”
Two parts: A gear shift next to the parking brake on a 2013 Honda Civic Coupe taken on Thursday, June 13, 2024. (Photo by Josiah Navratil/The Press)
