Caution: This post might age you.

When I was 14, was visiting family in Germany.
My older cousin had a manual car with the shifter on the steering column.
No idea what make the car was.
Anyway, that was my first time to drive and first attemps at driving a manual transmission.
Drove around a highschool parking lot.

So when I was 15, back here in Toronto, my mother took me to the GO parking lot at Rouge Hill in her 1974 Ford Pinto.....yes....a Pinto. Auto transmission.
And let me get the feel of driving slowly around an empty parking lot.

When I was 16/17, I learned to drive and got my license in an AMC Gremlin.
Anyone remember those awesome AMC cars?
Lol

 

Gremlin? Sweet. I learned to drive in a VW Quantum, which is funny, because Quantum Mechanics is the only mechanics I understand! Growing up in NYC, with no car, I knew zero about driving. My friend Don, who taught me, was a saint, even after I took out one of his bushes and put a dent in his garage door...T

 

My mother had a Gremlin, all tough I was to young to remember it.

This is what I learned to drive in. Hated manual back then.

 

Learned on dirt roads at the cottage in Dad's 1962 VW bug at age 14.

 

A brand new 1988 BMW M5....a "young" car jockey I was and fondly member that clutch weighting a TON. Reminds me never to purchase a high performance "demo" vehicle

 

1978 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Holiday Coupe

 

1990 Mazda MX-5 was my first manual car I drove when I was 16

 

It was my moms car... before anyone starts to judge me. lol

 

1976-1984 LADA's. We had fleets of them go through the driveway.

 

First car 1989 4runner
First manual car was a 1991 MR2 Turbo

 

My Dad's '69 VW bug, 4-speed. Drove around Woodbine Race Track's lot until I mastered the friction point (and quit stalling her)....the year was 1971, and this became my first car.

 

1973 Celica. It was my older sister's car and was a blast to work it through the gears.

 

Great thread idea

Ever since I was a little kid I was smitten by the cars. I spent hours playing in Grandpa's Lada and always begged him to teach me how to drive. He gave in when I was just 12 and hired a driving instructor with her car to do the job. She had an old beat-up Moskvich 412. I remember it was white just like the one in the picture and I also remember that it drove like crap.

 

1981 Chevy Malibu "Iraqi taxi".. Not the exact car you see below but 95%.. She was a 3-speed manual, shifter came up from the floor like a school bus. Dad bought it for $300 back in the early 1990s, we kept it on the road nearly 10 years before junking it. Got his moneys worth and even got $40 for the scrap metal It was a boat, the paint was faded beyond repair, but have some fun memories.

 

Further on your zer026T taxi story....Lifted from a curbside article .. http://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/...bu-iraqi-taxi/

In 1981, Saddam Hussein’s government placed an order for 25,000 specially-configured Malibus with GM of Canada, to be used primarily as taxi cabs. The specs included the smallest V6 engine, the rather un-loved 229 cubic inch (3.8L) 110 hp predecessor to the 4.3 L Chevy 90° V6. And curiously, they insisted on a three-speed manual, with a floor shifter, as well as air conditioning, HD cooling, AM/FM/cassette decks, front bench seats, 200 kmh speedometers, a rugged tweed-vinyl upholstery, and fully opening rear door windows (I kid). I do suspect that a heavy duty suspension was also in the package to deal with the rough roads.
Only about half of the order was ever shipped, as Iraq suddenly cancelled the order in 1982. Some excuses were given, including that drivers were having a hard time shifting the Saginaw three-speed. Apparently that wasn’t all just BS, as GMCL techs did identify and rectify (in Iraq) a problem with the clutch release. Perhaps more likely, the cancellation was the consequence of hard currency tightness due to Iraq’s war with Iran at the time.

In any case, the remaining 12,500 Iraqi Taxis were sold to Canadians at a hefty discounted price of about $6800. A fair number are still around, and often referred to as an “Iraqibu”.