My driving school had 2002 Corollas. Had a lot of problems to get the „feel“ for the clutch and after I mastered that the most challenging thing for me was starting on a hill using the handbrake. Auto-Hold these days is truly a blessing :)

Yeah I learned with a clutch, its very useful to have that skill in many countries where automatic is not available or much cheaper to rent.

Here in Spain it’s estimated that automatic transmission is between 30 and 50% of cars. No official numbers have been released.

So most people have learnt with a clutch. Definitely everyone who has had their license for more than 10 years.

Still own one. Was looking at going to a Kona EV but sounds like there’s a wide spread reduction gear issue with the model I was considering, so maybe not.

I believe the better question here is “clutch pedal” as automatic cars still have a clutch, you just aren’t manually booting it.

But yes I did learn to drive stick in a 2002 Mazda Protege.

Dad had to replace the clutch before I had mastered the subtle art of doing two things at the same time in a car.

Also I’m dyslexic and get my right and left mixed up easily . So you can imagine trying to navigate two feet on 3 pedals didn’t go well.

I did eventually learn a manual.

1993 Isuzu rodeo.

I learned in a car with automatic transmission first, but had to drive both and prefer (strongly prefer) a manual transmission.

Worst one ever - The Van. The shifter was about a meter long, the gears were so hard to find, and I had to drive it in tight spaces.

Best one ever, my current Honda from 2014. Absolutely glorious.

The fuck is a clutch? Oh, manual gear? I learned at driving school, I think all of them use manual cars in Brazil, since they’re way more common than automatics

An old Chevy pickup, with my dad mocking and bitching at me the entire time which really helped my anxiety about being on the road. Wonderful learning experience. First and last time I ever went out with him to learn to driving.

An ancient 10 speed dodge dump truck doing sugar beet harvest in nodak.

The UK is becoming more automatic now, and we also have a lot of EVs. I learnt on a manual but didn’t get a car until last year, which is electric. It’s much better.

1972 AMC Hornet Station wagon with 3 on the tree. Literally The Green Hornet

Learned in a Golf 7 and now I drive a Golf 4. It was delightful not having to turn off auto start stop after I got my license.

I did. 1993 Saturn SL2. I bought that car for $1500 in 2001 when I was 16 and quite literally drove it until the wheels fell off (which then ended in me flipping over the car on the highway, but that’s a story for another day. That also ended with being the reason I can’t listen to “The Red” by Chevelle without a mild panic attack, also a story for another day.)

The idea of buying an 8 year old car (with only 93k miles, at that) for $1500 just seems so foreign now.

All it needed was a muffler, too. I drove it for about a year and a half before I killed the clutch, and that was the most expensive repair it had.