In 2020 I needed a manual transmission car for my kids to learn how to drive olde school style.
When I was a kid, I learnt to drive in a 4 cylinder manual...so why wouldn't my kids? "But JAW, 90% of cars on the road in Perth are automatics. And nearly half of all kids in Western Australia get auto only licences these days. What's wrong with you?"
Look, bring on the day when cars drive themselves and I sit back for the ride. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world manual transmissions still rule the street and the engineer in me says "you don't get permission to drive an auto until you understand and can operate a manual" ;-)
Conveniently a mate at work was selling his first car, a 4 cylinder with manual transmission, just at the time I needed it. I'd seen it and I already knew that I liked it. It was a "high end" model for its day, with all the fruit - leather interior, biggest fastest engine for that model car, fancy metallic/pearl paint, racing wing on the boot and all. It is the 2007 last of the CH Lancers, "limited edition". Must have been because the new model was coming out later that year they were running out the old model as best they could...
I grabbed it, and it was less than a week before I was already doing stuff to it.
2007 CH Lancer, already modified by me, that didn't take long...
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