Cars - For Car Enthusiasts

The unnamed International transmission in my dad's old dump truck has reverse completely to the left and down. Conveniently placing it right in the middle of your goddamn leg.

It might not have been located quite that far over when new but now you basically have to scooch over and hug the driver door whenever you're backing up at all.

Honorable mention to the 6sp ZF trans in my dad's F550 flatbed, where reverse is left-and-up, also putting it near your knees and also in nice range of the hanging keys out of the ignition to whack against it randomly.

I like VW's push in shift lever then left and up. I have yet to drive a six speed (soon though), but it works for me on a five speed so I have no reason to believe it will be different on a six.

Why do you care?

I like 3 but I had an e30 and I was always worried when someone else had to drive it that they'd fuck it up. To be fair there's like a notch and it requires real force to go into R but people manhandle things. 4 is more idiot resistant.

Been driving manual for 30 years plus. Also trained people to drive manual professionally. Don't care.

Every car I have ever owned has been right and down. I am definitely accustomed to it now.

Once I drove a rental truck that was up and left. Just awful.

This is the shift pattern of the army deuce and a half trucks we had when I was in the army. Reverse was in kind of a weird place, until you got stuck in the mud and needed to rock back and forth, then it was nice.

4 for sure. 1 is a pain in the ass when you get in a 5 speed and you’re used to something else. I subconsciously double-clutched once and almost released the clutch in reverse gear at 70 once with that.

Right and down is my favorite and I hate everything else. Had a five speed Honda and Toyota for a couple of decades and loved that setup.

Left and up is first gear, so I don't want anything to the left of that. To start moving I want the stick to be going the same direction as the car, so up to the left for forward and down to the right for reverse just makes sense to me. I think I drove a really old farm truck that had the pull up to put it in reverse and it was fine for that setting, but would have been annoying for a daily driver.

VW you push down and under 1St gear

My old transporter (and bug before that) had depress the stick then left then back.

Right and down

what happen if I yank too hard and damage the shifter?

It's literally designed that way. You even answered it yourself:

The idea is to really push to the left so you engage reverse and not 1st.

I have a newer Honda and the manual transmission is a dream but 6th gear is in exactly the same position as reverse, so the first time I threw it into reverse I nearly shit myself. Terrifying.

My last 6 speed was a combo of 1 and 4 sorta. All the way right and down position, but only accessible by pulling the collar on the shifter up. Maybe that's the same as the knob pull you're mentioning though.

I liked it though. Kept 1-6 in places that made sense, and never had an "oh fuck" moment going from 5-6 since reverse required the collar pull. It was a 2006 Tiburon Tuscani trim (US if that matters). RIP good buddy.

Mazda RX8 was my first car, so that's knob down, left, forward

I’ve gotten used to 4 because it was the manual car I had driven the longest time.

164 Ford Econoline

in and then up

Ford transit - pull up the collar and shift left - so I guess that’s number 4?

I've only ever experienced right and down and the same but with pulling the knob.