Can You Learn To Drive Manual in 60 Seconds?
Perhaps one of our more challenging endeavours in recent years — given the need for brevity on social platforms, we suddenly became tasked with some would call impossible. How does one capture the essence of driving a manual transmission for the first time in under a minute? If you run through the plethora of mundane YouTube tutorials, most fall into the four to 20 minutes category, and most are varying shades of mind numbing to watch.
Thankfully, we were left with a fair bit of freedom, and the new stick-shift Acura Integra to play with. While the first cut of what was to be our most streamlined efforts still clocked nearly two minutes, a little finessing and a few cups of coffee has us primed and ready to go.
To give you a bit of extra time to digest — rather than watching these 58 seconds on repeat — here’s the basics of the lesson:
Step 1: Memorize the Shift Pattern
Before you get started and before you even fire up the engine, you need to know what gear goes where. The pattern is usually indicated on the top of the shift knob, and it can vary from cone car to the next. Case in point, the Integra’s shift pattern has the reverse gear far to the passenger side and back (towards the rear of the car). In some other cars — like the MINI Cooper for example — reverse is towards the driver and forward (towards the nose of the car). With your right foot on the brake and left foot on the clutch, you’re going to want to move the shifter through the various gears to understand how it feels.
Step 2: Start The Car
Obvious, right? With both feet on the clutch and brake, hit the start button to get the engine going. Some people like doing this step with the car in Neutral, but that’s not entirely necessary. If it’s engaged, you’ll now want to release the parking brake.
Step 3: Find The Friction Zone
For learning purposes you’re going to want to be in a flat parking lot the first few tries at least. Finding the friction zone is not rocket science, but it is a task that’s entirely done “by feel” rather than any other means. With the car in first gear, start lifting your left foot off the clutch slowly. As you do so, listen to the engine, and look closely at that tachometer (the thing in the instrument cluster that displays RPM, or engine speed). When you reach the friction zone, the engine will slow down a hair, as its just starting to engage with the transmission. The needle on the tach will drop, as a sign for you to press down a bit on the gas pedal. Refer back to the video to see the ways in which this can (and likely will) go wrong.
Step 4: Taking Off
As you find the friction zone, and give the engine a little gas, you’re going to start rolling. Again, it can get choppy here. Not enough gas will cause you to stall. Too much gas will lead to an accidental burnout. Neither are good things.
Step 5: Changing Gears
Again, the video clears this one up nicely, but changing gears is all about remembering the order of your tasks. Once you’ve accelerated enough in first gear, you’re following these steps: Lift your right foot off the gas, push down on the clutch with your left foot, shift from the gear you’re in over to the next gear, lift your left foot back off of the clutch, and get your right foot back on the gas. Your shift point will vary based on how aggressive you drive, but it’s best to aim for at least 3,000 to 3,500 RPM.
Going the opposite way is the same story as far as the sequence. as you slow down and RPMs get low, the engine is going to feel like its starting to struggle. Follow the sequence above, but this time change to a lower number gear (from four to three, from six to five, etc). As a general rule when slowing to a stop, don’t bother coming down to first gear. Stay in second as you slow down, and don’t shift the car to first until the car is at a complete stop.
And there you have it! You’ll be off to the races in no time.
