[dradernh]

I haven't read the previous 129 posts, so please forgive me if I'm repeating anything that's come before when I say "No, as I've been driving manuals since 1967."

Prior to my first car, I was driving "manual" motorcycles. Before that, I owned and drove a Briggs & Stratton scooter with a sidecar; it too was, of course, a manual. Edit: memory-jogging led to further investigation, and that revealed the scooter was in fact a Cushman and that it had a Briggs & Stratton engine in it.

Now, I've owned Tundras (read: no manuals available), and I did own a '64 Olds 98 (aka "the last real Oldsmobile" (that's an in-crowd thing, so don't worry about it)), but I've always preferred, had, and almost exclusively driven cars with manual transmissions.

I'm an old guy and freely admit that, yes, it's a personal thing. As time goes on, it's become more complicated to explain. Some fellows still mow their own lawns, wash their own cars, iron their own shirts, polish their own shoes (well, maybe not so much, anymore, but still), take out their own trash, etc., etc. It's in that context that some of us still enjoy determining when it's time to change gears in our transmissions while rolling down the road. For me, I can't imagine it any other way. Although...I did return a 330i loaner to the dealer yesterday, but...that would be a digression not worth following.