Millennial Auto Theft Deterrent ...

So buddy picks me up in a 1960 Austin Healey, really great condition but needs new shocks; worth about $35-45k. Looks sweet but man just not my cup of tea, noisy as all hell; steers like a sailboat on the cape; no thanks. I’ll stick with 21st century technology.

 

Electric Cars—and Irrationality—Just Might Save the Stick Shift

 

My older brother had an Austin-Healy Bugeye Sprite. It was a helluva lot of fun when we lived in Tampa. We moved to Atlanta in February of 1965, and the moving van had most of the house. Mom and Dad packed the station wagon with all the precious/fragile stuff, all the way to the back of the front bench seat. There were five of us. Three fit in the station wagon, and one rode in the AH with my brother. The reason that this is germaine is that the Sprite didn't have windows, it had side curtains that leaked air like crazy, and the heater was virtually non-existent. We took turns freezing in that thing for 500 miles. It's a miracle my brother didn't die of hypothermia, 'cause he was stuck driving it.

When we got to our new house in Atlanta, fresh built in a new subdivision, the yard was raw red clay. There were inch and a half tall ice crystals sticking up out of the frozen ground. I had lived all my young life in Tampa. Blew my mind. Might as well have been the Arctic so far as I was concerned.


That said, I think that car is part of why I love Miatas. They are basically a classic little British roadster - except that everything on them works.

There is a very old joke among British car guys, relating to the notorious unreliability of Lucas Electric, who supplied electrical systems for many Brit sports cars.

"Why do the British drink warm beer?"
"Because Lucas Electric makes their refrigerators."

 

I know I've mentioned this on here before, but if you watch the "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" with Seinfeld and Miranda Sings in an Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite... that's my parents' car. Seinfeld's producer borrowed it for the episode.

They owned a Sprite before I was born but when I came along it wasn't all that practical, so they sold it. They bought a restored one after my dad retired.

 

I only tried to drive a manual transmission once in my entire life.

It was my 20th birthday. I was hanging out in Baltimore with one of my friends from my community college. He had me drive in the parking lot around his apartment complex.

Fortunately, the only "damage" was I stalled out a bunch of times.

I'm 46 now.

 

When I was 16, my dad offered to teach me how to drive stick. I said, “You kidding? Everything is automatic now.”

Seven years later, I move to Alaska and am the butt of many jokes for my inability to drive a manual. Still didn’t learn.

Then I fall in love with a woman from rural Canada. Had a few embarrassing moments but learned as quick as I could. Now, for the time being, it’s the only option in casa jlee.

 

Stick shift prevents teens from stealing Cleveland woman’s car at gunpoint in Detroit Shoreway

 

Awesome!! See it works!

 

Dumb kids. No stick skills? For shame ... then again, there are employees in service departments who cannot drive a manual.

2004 Toyota Corolla. Chop-shop special? No sense of adventure ...