What's an auto?
I have a manual 2011 Forester with low range: pretty hard to find nowadays.
My first car was a 1954 Vauxhall Velox which I bought for $50 on my 16th birthday and then did up over the next 12 months. Three on the tree of course. I couldn't fix the synchro though (too expensive with zero budget), so it was double de-clutch every time I had to change down: this was always fun when the poor old thing ran out of puff on a steep hill...
A great car with some interesting features:
- the windows were simply push up and down with no winders, so it was instant air-conditioning when you hit a bump
- the window wipers were geared to the engine speed, so if you were in heavy rain you either had to go faster or double de-clutch down to increase the revs in order to be able to see
- I could walk across the roof without denting it (an awful lot of steel in those cars!)
- when creek crossing with deeper water you simply had to open the doors to let the water out after each crossing
- it had turn indicators operated by a little switch on the top of the central part of the steering wheel; none of these fancy stalk things!
Luxuries too:
- valve radio
- all leather seats
Ah, those were the days.
- Dean
. My troopie is manual and I wouldn't want a automatic 4WD. I know the new decent assist and traction control is supposed to work (and I've seen videos of it working) but I wouldn't feel comfortable.
