Tom Whitehurst

Are Americans too lazy to move their right arm, left leg?

   Americans aren't totally lazy, just 90 percent. That's the percentage of cars sold in the United States with automatic transmission. In Europe, about 80 percent of the cars sold are manual transmission, according to a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers who specializes in manual transmission design. (This engineer shall remain nameless because he could have walked here from Detroit faster than he could have gotten clearance from his Big Three employer to be quoted by name.)
   Europeans' heavy use of the stick, and our own lack of clutch performance, has less to do with romance than with the price of fuel, according to the engineer, a true lover of manual transmissions.
   Our automotive writer, Brooks Peterson, shares this love, as do I. He reveals his preference for manual about once a week because that's how often we publish his car column. Brooks has learned to anticipate my two weekly questions: 1. What're you driving this week? And, 2. Stick?
   Neither of us likes no for an answer.
   I just don't understand why the vast majority would pay more for a car, to get worse mileage - and thus pay still more money at the pump, especially nowadays - just to avoid having to move their right arm and left leg now and then. But obviously I'm in the minority. I also am not sure when people became so trusting of their cars' reliability that they were willing to give up the push-start option - an option I've had to exercise more than once.
   It might interest you to know that it costs the manufacturers more to make cars with manual transmission than with automatic. They charge more for automatic transmission because it's a marketable creature comfort. (That means you could buy a more expensive product for less, and save still more money at the pump. Americans aren't total suckers, just 90 percent.)
   This higher manufacturing cost partly explains why the Lincoln LS costs more as a manual. Not only does a manual typically cost more to make, but in the case of the Lincoln, an extra assembly line had to be built because Lincoln hadn't been making manual transmissions until it decided to offer one in the LS.
   It came as no surprise that the inventory at Bob Lacy Ford reflected the national tendency. Like many General Motors and Chrysler products, many Ford cars and trucks aren't available in manual transmission.
   Even buyers of the sporty Mustang overwhelmingly choose automatic, said Bob Lacy Jr., who estimated that about 80 percent of his Mustang sales are automatics.
   Lacy said he has encountered young buyers who wanted stick shifts because they thought sticks were cool, but there was one obstacle to the sale: They didn't know how to drive them. At times, he has solved this problem by taking customers out to some back roads and teaching them how to drive manuals. Talk about your dealer incentive.
   Ford offers some incentives to buyers of some of its truck models if they choose manual, Lacy said. But most trucks, like most cars, are automatic.
   Lacy says the fuel-efficiency argument is overrated, and he has a point. Generally, a manual saves maybe a mile per gallon in city driving and maybe two miles per gallon on the highway - perhaps enough incentive at European pump prices, but thus far, not enough at U.S. prices.
   He also has a plausible theory for why Europeans would prefer the experience of driving a stick shift. They have lots of winding roads, which make shifting more fun, whereas we have lots of long, straight superhighways, which make us want to switch on the cruise control.
   The primary reasons Americans buy stick-shift cars are for sports appeal or for entry-level economy, according to the automotive engineer. That puts them at the two extremes of the most expensive exotics and the cheapest econoboxes. You'd think the local Volkswagen-BMW-Porsche lot would be the haven for buyers of manual transmission. But half of the VWs and 90 percent of the Bimmers at Coastal Motorcars are automatics, said salesman Victor Lara. Porsche is the exception. The dealership orders only stick-shift Porsches, unless one is pre-sold as an automatic. But we're talking about a small number of vehicles. The dealership usually has a maximum of three Porsches in stock, and last week had only one, Lara said.
   Lara has a theory, born of observation, for why even his customers tend to choose automatic:
   "I've been here three years, and dealing with people and talking with people, I've found that a lot of people are lazy. America is probably one of the laziest countries."
   But there's hope for the younger generation. The automotive engineer says that sale of manual transmissions is expected to increase slightly in the next five years. Strangely enough, it's not the fuel economy they're after. It's the experience of driving a stick.
  
  

---

---

  © 2000 Corpus Christi Caller Times, a Scripps Howard newspaper. All rights reserved.