Illustration by Drew Shannon
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I dropped into second gear to slow down for the tight switchback and shifted back up to third and ultimately fourth to power out of the turn and level out. The rhythm of just feeling and hearing when it was right to shift – this feeling is what I had been looking forward to.
We’d rented a manual transmission car in Sicily, at my request. At the rental desk, they’d looked at me askance and asked me if I was sure. North Americans typically don’t ask for a manual drives and get upset if that’s all that’s left for them. But I’d cut my teeth driving manual transmissions, from the old three gears on the steering column, “three on the tree” we used to call them, to the sportier shifter on the floor known as a “stick shift” or “four on the floor.” Our second car, which we sold maybe 10 years ago, was a manual transmission Mazda that was mostly driven by my wife, although I would still take it out for a spin once in a while.
But since then, it’s been all automatic transmissions, which make driving easier but less challenging and definitely not as much fun.
So, about once a year, when we go to Europe, I get my manual transmission fix. There’s just something about being in Europe that tells me I must drive a manual. I have driven in Italy before, and although challenging, it was not as challenging as driving a manual in Ireland and Scotland, where the shifter was on my left, and I was driving on the left side of the road. That took some serious focus.
I came face-to-face with one of my biggest fears on a hike in the B.C. Rockies
On this trip, we picked up our car at the Palermo airport. While I would have liked it to be an Alfa Romeo convertible with my wife in the passenger seat wearing a Gucci headscarf and oversized Versace sunglasses, the car was a cheap Chinese knockoff of the formerly iconic British brand MG. After getting in a couple of shifts on the sideroad leading out of the airport to familiarize myself with the clutch, I was right back into it without missing a beat, ramping onto the highway and powering through the gears at the breakneck speed of Italian driving. The muscle memory came back immediately. If I didn’t have both hands occupied, I would have patted myself on my back, so proud was I of the smoothness of my gear changes.
We took backroads where we could, to see more of the countryside and to make the driving more interesting. We drove through rundown little Sicilian towns, past derelict and deserted buildings, past mind-boggling amounts of litter and graffiti, up and down hills, and around tight curves – all on roads that had lane markings last painted during the Mussolini era. I was driving, and I was challenged, and I was loving it.
Although the shifting can be done without much thought, driving in Italy is a test of nerves, mainly because of the aggressive driving habits of the Italians. Tailgating so close that it’s like they’re in my back seat is accepted and would provoke road rage here in Canada. Passing is done any time, anywhere, without regard for corners. When we took cabs in Rome near the end of our trip, the cab driver, driving a manual transmission, had two phones – one for GPS and one that he was constantly on, texting or playing with apps – all while needlessly tailgating at an extreme level and still managing to shift gears. Yet when I looked up stats online, surprisingly, the World Health Organization notes Italy has a similar fatality rate from traffic accidents as Canada.
Our drive through the hills of Sicily, although harrowing, scratched that itch to get back to my roots and feel like I was driving again.
So the obvious question is, If I like driving a manual so much, why not just buy one? In Toronto traffic, the question is almost academic. The need to keep working the clutch is wearying and my body is already beginning to give out, what with creaky knees, replaced hips and a wonky back. What’s more, the very Canadian need to keep one hand on the steering wheel while the other hand holds a coffee, all while working through a 20-pack of Timbits, leaves no appendages available for shifting. And so driving a manual falls into the category of a holiday treat for me, and one that I look forward to.
I need to savour this now, because I’ve read that some rental companies are applying maximum ages, and I fear that not too far in my future is the dreaded bus tour. Next year, I hope I can still rent a car to take a driving trip, and I want it to be twisty and turny and hilly and involve lots of shifting, but I could do without the tailgating.
Brad Furlott lives in Toronto.