Two nations separated by a common car transmission (automatic vs standard (manual))
 

Renting a vehicle with an automatic transmission is an upgrade in the U.K.

Renting a vehicle with a standard transmission is an upgrade in the U.S.A.

You can rent a car with a manual transmission in the US?? I had no idea.

One way is to rent an "exotic".

How does a manual work in the age of CVT? Are you guys constantly twisting dials or something?

Neither did I however it was an option offered to me when I made an off-airport booking in Tampa. It wasn't an exotic either just a small sedan. The increase was quite modest about $50 for the week.

Never seen a car with three pedals have you? Or even four? ;)

I'm not even sure an "exotic" rental is going to get you much. Ferrari hasn't had a manual transmission since 2011. Most others have gone to twin-clutch autos also.

Yeah--last time I was car shopping I found a CVT car. All my objections with automatic transmissions are gone, I see no reason to go back.

If you mean mechanically--you have a third pedal that disconnects the engine from the transmission. When that pedal is pressed you can move the gearshift. The gearshift movement is also more complex--the usual form is an H shape, if you have more than three gears it's more like HH, or in heavy vehicles you might have even more slots you can move into.

The driver presses the pedal, sets the shift lever to the desired position and releases the pedal. The driver must be aware of the engine speed and shift as needed. It takes practice because it must be done with reasonable speed if you want to avoid holding up traffic, but you have to be aware of what is going to happen as the pedal comes up--at the point the pedal is up the engine speed will be set to the transmission speed. If that's too slow the engine stops.

To do this smoothly and quickly requires reducing it to muscle memory--which will take a bit of retraining when you're in a different car, but the basic pattern is the same and you quickly adapt.

So do not try to drive Ford Model T.

Putting my professional Mechanical Engineering hat on I would never ever buy a car with a CVT.

Nor have I ever harnessed the horses and ridden the buckboard. @:-)

(Not sure what this obsession with some guys is with manual transmissions.)

I'm not a guy, but I thought I wanted a manual when I was around 22 because they are cheaper and have slightly better gas mileage. Then a friend (who had a manual because her parents were cheap) said it's fun 20% of the time and really annoying the other 80%. I'm sure that is a lot different with a high end car vs a generic american or japanese car, but it put me off ever bothering to buy a manual.

It's just SPS and such. None of the guys who wax poetic about a manual transmission car would ever accept, say, a manual-defrost refrigerator in 2017.

Depends on where you drive. A manual clutch is a pain in city traffic, and really a bad idea in a hilly city. It's pretty much invisible on motorways. You jam up to top gear and steer. But on one of the brilliant back roads, two lanes and twisty, in France or Britain or Germany...nothing quite matches those drives with a manual.

I'm not a guy either and I drive only manual transmission cars in my personal life. I've never even seen one for a rental in the US though. I always rent them when out of the country.

It has nothing at all to do with old technology vs new. That's a pretty ridiculous comparison. I love to drive. I love to shift and have that control. It's a preference, not a middle finger to new things.

My wife loves manual cars. She found herself a 5-speed Nissan Maxima. It was $500 cheaper than the automatic and had leather interior (net gain $1000.) The car is quite peppy and fun to drive. I have never seen a manual for rent.