Take a vacation from automatic transmission. That is my usual course of action when travelling in Europe. If I’m visiting cities, I ride the train and take public transit. If I am touring small towns and villages, however, an automobile is required. Local trains are fine, but they do not allow you the spontaneity that driving does, especially in regions such as Campania and Basilicata in Italy.
Unlike North America, where automatic transmission is the default when renting a car, in countries such as Italy, manual is typically the default with an added fee for automatic. So, on a recent visit to Tuscany and Umbria, I was surprised to be offered an automatic vehicle for the almost same price as a manual.
It was a moment of crisis.
I grew up driving stick but went with automatic when I got into my minivan years. You need a free hand to pass back toys, fries, diapers and apple juice boxes. Also, a manual transmission is just not practical when living in Toronto. It’s not stop-and-start traffic. It’s stop-and stop-traffic. They should come up with “anti-sedative transmission” for Toronto and other major cities.
I love driving stick because you feel the road, you are driving the road the way a skier skies a hill or a surfer surfers a wave. It’s the way driving is meant to be.
Should I sacrifice the true driving experience that only manual transmission provides? After all, manual transmission and Italian driving go together like food and wine. I enjoy driving stick so much that I pay to polish up my manual transmission skills before arriving in Italy. In 2018, I studied with Carlos Tomas, the owner of Shifters, the first driving school in Canada devoted exclusively to learning how to drive manual transmission.
I’d never really considered driving automatic while in Italy. Business or pleasure bring me there once or twice a year and I almost always drive stick. Twice I rented an automatic Opel Corsa Crossland, but I had not been given an option. Both times, I’d booked the “manager’s choice” plan. They give you whatever happens to be on the lot.
This time, I was given the choice between manual and automatic.
Would I betray my past and North Americanize my Italian road experience?
My instinct said no. Stay true to the stick shift. My blood boiled as I thought of the haters who write questions on the internet such as “Why do manual transmissions exist?” It reflects the European passion for driving and appreciation for the skill and attention required. Automatic transmission is an unconditional surrender to the stop and start of gridlock. While automatic is easier, manual is arguably much safer as it requires the driver’s full attention. It’s hard to have a cellphone in one hand and drive stick.
Even with the proliferation of stick shifts in Europe, the mode is under pressure. Volkswagen is considering cutting manual transmission as an option to comply with European Union regulations. Autocar reported that “the Volkswagen Golf is set to go automatic only as part of a mid-life update in 2024, if impending Euro 7 emissions rules are signed off in their current form … The move brings to an end nearly 50 years of the manual GTI.”
Yet my nostalgic romanticization began to yield to my cautious nature. I love driving manual in Italy, but do I love hill starts on narrow Tuscan roads? It takes a while to find the biting point on a rental, to get that sweet spot where you feel the back of the car dip down and the front raise ever so slightly. Not enough gas and you may roll back, get off the clutch too much and it will stall or bolt forward. This was a coveted skill to master when I first leaned to drive standard in the 1980s. You must measure your clutch while gravity works against you. Some European cars now come with “Hill Start Assist,” but many don’t.
Did I really want to deal with those hills? Did I really want the feel of a stick shift or did I want the easy roll of the automatic?
In the end my curiosity won. I chose the automatic simply so I could compare the experience. I opted for the 2022 Volkswagen T-Roc, a small, front-wheel-drive SUV with a four-cylinder turbo engine that seats five.
It isn’t the most fun car I’ve driven, but it was stress-free and smooth. Plenty of room and trunk space. It’s a safe-driving vehicle for a safe-driving mindset. The T-Roc is about as much fun as a small automatic transmission SUV can be. I appreciated it on those steep hills, especially after I witnessed another driver, in a manual Fiat, slide off the road while trying to reverse.
Did my automatic T-Roc capture the romance of darting about the Tuscan countryside in a 1966 Fiat 500 F or a 1977 Maserati Kyalami?
No, but then neither do I.
Will I go automatic on my next European trip?
My automatic answer? I’ll go manual. Old habits die hard. Then again, there is something about those steep Italian hill starts that sends a chill down the spine. Maybe I’ll leave it to fate and go with the manager’s choice.