Same here, with the exception of a '98 Boxster with a 5-speed manual (which my dad owns). However the car's in storage over the Canadian winter season, so hopefully once spring rolls around, I hopefully learn how to drive standard.
I'm assuming you mean America by "over here", in which case there are plenty of cheap $500-$600 Honda's on craigslist that have manuals
Okay, Admitadly there are a fair few cars with manual transmissions in the US, but there are almost no cars that are manual and rear wheel drive made after 96 that aren't from European companies that are not sports cars, pickups or SUVs.
Probably depends on where you're from. I'd imagine bigger cities are going to be more automatic cars.
even relatively modern automatics (torque converter) such as the ZF-8 aren't perfect, there are multiple times that i have seen it go wild revving past 3400rpm (diesel) when really you need about 2500rpm to accelerate. But paddle shifters are a thing so it isn't as bad. My grandads rangerover 3.8TDV8 has a silly gearbox, under normal acceleration it goes past 3000rpm which in my opinion is unacceptable in a diesel V8, its noisy too, it should just waft along at 2000rpm at low speeds and possibly 2500rpm on the motorway. Manuals will never be as smooth as Automatics since with an auto you have a torque converter, this can be unlocked and locked to add difference between gears, for example 1st and 2nd (apparent on the Gavril D15) when you accelerate off at 2500rpm and when it goes to 2nd the RPMs don't just drop to 1800rpm they stay at 2500rpm with torque magnification. It also makes it smooth, and if tuned right then it can feel like there is no gears to the car (Rolls Royce) Which is what i don't understand, if Rolls Royce went to all the trouble of making a ZF-6/ZF-8 to feel like it didn't have any gears then why didn't they just use a CVT, people don't flamewar the rolls royce but CVTs are flameward all the time
