Quote:
Originally Posted by 1erich
My wife struggles with a manual. Being a nervous driver she concentrates obsessively on everything going on around her making it difficult adding something else to focus on. It's hilarious watching her try to park in a lot. She's so nervous pulling up a couple feet to get closer to a curb. She's afraid the clutch will engage suddenly and cause us to crash over the curb. I just try to be supportive and hope she'll pick it up but so far I can't convince her to drive outside of empty parking lots...*sigh* 
That being said my next car will still be a manual. It's a big part of what makes driving fun for me. I'm not interested in track driving competitively, just having fun, so the slightly quicker lap times are not a big draw for me. It's more about the experience, which is why any of us are interested in BMW's at all I suppose.
I guess I'll have to try to take her out to a country road and practise some more with my dad's Carolla. I wouldn't want her to miss out on all the fun! I'd love to get her out to a track day instruction school or even better a rally school some day. You'd probably never guess it, but she watches F1 religiously with me so I'm hoping that spark is in her somewhere!
-Erich |
I've been teaching my future wife how to drive my manual WRX. One exercise I did was to have her practice taking off while I screamed in her ear and made horn noises. While pretty funny, it helped her concentrate to ignore me and go at her own pace. Now at a stop light she's not as nervous. :wink:
She's down with me getting the 135i (manual tranny) over the new STI since she loves BMW's (and would rather be seen in it
). She'll probably take it work occasionally when I ride the cycle in. I have to say I'm thrilled she wants to learn how to drive a manual properly. :thumbup: