Featured Technical Two pedals or three

Neuropathy in your feet can change your mind on manual transmissions. I have stick shifts in 4 collector / Hot Rod vehicles. After 60 years of being on my knees with my toes curled back, building cars it has taken its toll. I can still drive a manual for the time being, but I do like vehicles with automatics and cruise control.

 

This is MY girls car, it has 2 pedals. HRP

 

Only with a manual shift can you push in the clutch and goose the throttle as you're pulling into the drive-in. Or let off the gas and have the engine go
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...

Important stuff.

 

Andy just install only one neutral
Dan

 

Three for me and always will be and I have some names for the na sayers Mike Finnegan with his bad ass 55 chevy, Steve Dulcich in the bang shift cougar, David Freiburger in the 56 field car chevy.

 

My ole man can beat up your ole man

 

Two pedals or three?

They are both fun in their own way. Get at least one of each.

 

Dayum guy, we should all save this thread, and then if we have a crappy day, we can have a reread of it and life will be great again.

I doff my hat to all you who contributor-ed. Today, you are my heroes.

And Mr Myrick, remember, not all heroes wear capes

 

Real hot rods have 3 pedals but none of them is the gas...lol

 

I have never in my life owned an automatic transmission, except for the few months my sister and I co-owned the 1975 W116 Mercedes-Benz we inherited from our dad. It was as much by default as by choice: until recently manual was very much the norm here. Automatics were for large luxury cars and your grandmother.

There's a sort of proportionality to it, in the same way people who live in Amsterdam would need to be much further gone before they can't climb stairs, compared to people who live e.g. here or in the USA. I'm not making light of actual disability, but context really does seem to be a factor. It's the same way with using a clutch here: I'd need to be pretty much dead before I really can't use one.

I don't bend as well as I used to, and I could never bend very well to begin with. My problem these days is my left calf going into spasm if I need to keep the clutch pedal pushed down for long periods of time, like in stop-go traffic. I find myself taking the car out of gear and applying the handbrake more often than I used to.

I could really use a manual transmission with a torque converter, though not really primarily for that reason. My dream transmission requires three pedals but has planetary gears and a torque converter.

 

My Belly Tank only has two, clutch and gas. JW

 

Believe me, I’ve tried!

 

As I’m reading this thread I’m wondering if we revisit this in say 5 or so years how many of us jump ship and embrace our feminine sides

 

Took me a good while to find a third pedal for my 56 Pontiac. I really wanted to leave all pedals through the floor.

I guess I hope to live long enough to no longer be able to drive it.

 

3 pedals are for people without girls...lol....bench and automagic on the column are awesome...lol

 

I don’t know bench seat and a stick is pretty nice, especially when you have a slippery knob and can’t hang onto it when you hit second and 4th

 

2 pedals, keep it simple

 

Real men don’t need the middle petal lol

 

I like my stick shift cars. One is a go-fast drag car, the other is my '65 f100.
There are times when I wished the Ol' Furd was automatical. Such as the traffic jam in utah we encountered on our road trip recently. My clutch leg got quite a workout. Another in a hotel parking lot in Monterey CA, where I had to make a 12 point turn on an incline to inch 'er out of a way too tight parking situation.
The drag race car has won a bunch of races against auto trans cars, but it took a bit of time to find the correct balance of clutch and overall chassis set-up. It'll run within a few hundredths on every run.
Someone mentioned neuropathy. Yes that is a real thing. A terrible thing. My first wife had a nice little Karmann Ghia convertible. Then cancer. Chemo caused neuropathy in her feet, and she just couldn't drive it any longer. We sold it, and I bought her a brand new Challenger.

 

Darn skippy! My first Hot Rod.

 

Old age sucks, not to mention all the accumulated broken bones over the years.

BTW, this one has 3 pedals...



And it's Brenda's wagon. HRP

 

This thread sounds shifty to me.
Classifieds just sayin.

 

I'm past 80. Learned to drive a 49 AD, three on the tree. My first two cars were three on the tree. I've had the 38 Chevy for over fifty years, was built and still has a four speed. The Vette I had was a four speed as was the chopped 49 Ford (well it was three plus OD but all the rest have been automatics, not because of choice but it was what was handy. The 62 F100 unibody I'm building now came new as a six & three on the tree, before I got it someone stuffed in a 302/C4. I picked up a 77 F250 for the 460 and C6 because I could I love driving that old 38 Chevy but after hearing me run the gears at the drag strip I found I am no Grumpy Jenkins, this man knows his limitations

 

70 and over 2 pedals, others 3's OK.

 

When I raced my '57, it had a modified torqueflite in it. It is now only driven on the street and I converted it to a 4 speed. Having a manual transmission does not make a car a hot rod. There is more to it than that.

 

My little beater daily is a 5spd. Plymouth is 3/tree. I usually have at least one manual in my fleet at all times. I don’t mind automatic for long distance

 

i drove big trucks that had boo-coo torque and speeds. after i retired, i bought a stickshift hemi car and had to relearn it all. i'll take a stickshift any day!

 

Fifty years ago, I built this Roadster that weighed 1515 lbs. It had a Boss 302 and toploader 4 speed, with a 2.78 first gear and 5.43's in the rear. Leaving at 7500 and shifting between your legs all four gears in 6 seconds, very busy ! That very same trans and Hurst Super Shifter is in my RPU.

 

I think the thing about a car with 3 pedals is enjoying the sound the engine makes as you lightly accelerate and the slight pause in the exhaust note as you select the next gear, often accompanied by a little throttle blip while the car still remains at the same speed and then the car resumes that throaty lope.
Just always loved that sound............