The author, John Marek, is executive director of the Anson Economic Development Partnership.

The year I got my driver’s license, 1979, fully one-third of the cars on the road had manual transmissions. Most cars and trucks in those days came standard with “stick shift.” Automatic transmissions, like electric windows, A/C and 8-track players, were a pricey option. In addition to the upfront cost, automatics were considered gas guzzlers and prone to costly repairs. However, many people still preferred them for the convenience and as a status symbol. 

Although my family certainly wasn’t concerned about status, all of the cars we owned through my youth were automatics. My mother couldn’t drive stick, and while she generally drove less than 100 miles per year, she did occasionally need to get behind the wheel. I primarily learned to drive in our battleship-like 1972 Caprice, but my brother also taught me to drive his manual Jeep CJ-5. Learning to drive stick was a badge of honor for teens of my era, like tying your own flies or pitching a tent alone in the woods.

As it turned out for me, concerns about the reliability of automatics were very legitimate, and the manual driving lessons proved very handy. On a crisp fall Saturday during my senior year of high school, I drove the Caprice to my job at a local restaurant. I didn’t typically get to drive the dreadnaught, but dad had some chore that was better suited for the “beater” car I usually drove, a 1970 Nova with a driver’s side door held in place with wire and duct tape, and a rust hole the size of a dollar bill in the floorboard under the accelerator. After my shift at the restaurant, I went out to the Caprice, started the engine, put it in reverse and … nothing 

happened. I put it in drive. Again nothing. Reverse, drive, reverse, drive. Nothing. The tranny was toast.

That experience stuck with me and impacted my decision-making when it came time to buy cars of my own. The first four vehicles my wife and I purchased after college were all manual. It wasn’t until 1994 that I finally bought a car with an automatic, an Eagle Vision that (of course) lost its transmission a couple of years later under circumstances remarkably similar to the Caprice; fall day, work finished, no go. 

These days, you have to go out of your way to get a car with a stick shift. Less than 5 percent of new cars sold have manual transmissions, and only 13 percent of the models available even offer it as an option. 

The decline of the manual transmission is related to three factors. More people today are urban and suburban commuters than in 1979, and sticks are simply no fun for stop-and-go driving. More importantly, though, the efficiency and overall reliability of modern automatic transmissions are much better. Today’s six-speed automatics offer fuel economy as good as or better than manuals, and car buyers can reasonably expect an automatic to last for 200,000 miles, durability that was unheard of 30 years ago. 

As fewer and fewer vehicles are sold with manual transmissions, the number of drivers who learn to operate them decreases every year, further lowering the demand. Many auto experts predict that manual transmissions will completely disappear or be offered only as an expensive option on select performance and off-road vehicles by the end of the decade. That would be a shame. There’s nothing quite like popping that clutch on an open highway or a winding road.