Standard Transmission

U.S. Army mechanic servicing a transmission on a heavy truck, during World War Two.

My son recently obtained his "regular" driver's license and therefore is now competent, in the eyes of the state to operate conventional motor vehicles on the public roads.  The vehicle that we own that he's generally allowed to drive is a 1997 Dodge D1500 4x4 pickup truck.  For some reason, over time, this locality has become Dodge central.  We have three Dodge pickup trucks, and they're all standard transmission trucks.  We also have a Chevrolet Suburban, and its an automatic.  Maybe all newer ones are.  Anyhow, the topic of driving came up the other day and he mentioned that a friend of his asked him about how to drive a standard transmission, which is a question I don't think I'd have thought to ask anyone when I was 16 years old.  I knew how to drive a standard transmission.  I think that all the boys I hung out with did.

Which isn't to say that we all drove standard transmissions all the time when we were first driving.  Thinking back, at age 16, I'd owned a vehicle, a Jeep, that had a standard transmission for a year by the time I obtained my license.  But my next vehicle, a Ford F100 (yes, F100, they don't make a "light" half tone any more, but in 1974, the year mine was made, they did) was an automatic transmission.  So was the next vehicle I owned after that, a 1974 Dodge D150.  But since the D150 I've never personally bought another automatic.  I prefer manual transmissions.  I have owned two, sort of.  I inherited a 1973 Mercury Comet, a great car, that was an automatic, and the car that we bought a decade ago for my wife is the aforementioned Suburban.

But I've owned a lot more standards and the only times I've actually purchased a vehicle new, they were standards.  I've owned just about every type as well, from "three on the tree" types, now a thing of the distant past, to the once very standard four speed transmission, to the current six speed.  As most of my vehicles have been 4x4s as well, I've also always had, on my vehicles, the manual shifter for the transfer case.  On one older 4x4 I once had, I had three levers, one for the transmission, one for the high and low range of gears in the transmission, and one for the transfer case, a once very common arrangement that  even those who drive modern standard transmission 4x4s would probably be baffled by at first.

I can't say really why I prefer standards, but I do.  I guess I like the ability to determine what gear I think I should be in, rather than have hydraulic pressure determine that for me.  And most more work like trucks were standards. But that's soon to be a thing of the past.  My guess is that within the next decade a person will have to be driving a very heavy truck in order for it to be purchased with an automatic. When electric vehicles come in, and they will, standards will be irrelevant completely, as they work differently.

Even within the past three decades this trend has been pretty evident.  At the time that I was getting ready to leave the National Guard for law school, thinking that I wouldn't have time to be a Guardsman and a law student (an erroneous decision that, hindsight being 20/20, I would have made differently, staying in the Guard while in school and after) the Army was acquiring automatic transmission heavy trucks to replace the old standard transmission trucks.  Training time, and lack of soldier familiarity with standards, was the reason why.  Since that time I think it's become almost impossible to acquire a manual in a pickup truck except if it was made by Chrysler, and the end of that day is in sight.

Gear shift and Transfer Case shifter, for my (rather obviously dirty) Dodge D3500.  A view of this type will soon be a thing of the past for new vehicles, I suspect.

This is not to say that I'm lamenting this.  I do think manual transmissions are a better option for folks who know how to really use them for trucks, but most people no longer learn how to drive a standard transmission. Shoot, most people don't even call them "standard transmissions" and automatic transmissions really are the standard today.  When electric vehicles come in they won't feature a transmission of this type at all, and neither the current automatic transmission or the manual transmission will remain, although to most drivers of automatics the difference will not be noticeable.

But what a difference it makes in regards to some people's ability to drive.  Back when standards were the norm, there were some who had problems driving simply due to that. My mother barely learned to drive an automatic, I can't imagine what driving a standard (if she ever did) was like for her.  And today, many people simply can't do it. They don't know how.

 Note:  We've added a poll on this topic off to the side.