The writer's son, Tristan, grips the shift knob of a Toyota Corolla Hatchback.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
I took my 19-year-old son Tristan to meet instructor Mark Jonak, who taught him in an hour how to drive a manual-transmission Toyota Corolla Hatchback.
“The first thing is to explain the pedals,” Jonak said. “You have three pedals, with the clutch on the left and then the gear lever for your right hand.
"When you operate the gear shift, the clutch pedal has to be pushed against the floor so the clutch is disengaged. It’s the same thing with braking – your left foot has to be ahead of the right foot. If you don’t, the engine will stall.”
Tristan pushed down on both the clutch pedal and the brake pedal and started the engine. The car didn’t move.
“Now pull back with your left foot slowly on the pedal to release the clutch,” Jonak said. Tristan did so, not very slowly, and the car immediately shuddered and stalled. He frowned.
“Push in the clutch pedal again and start the engine again,” Jonak said. “There’s no hurry.”
Mark Jonak and Tristan with the manual-transmission Corolla.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
Tristan restarted the engine and, this time, pulled back very slowly indeed on the clutch pedal. When the car began to move, Jonak told him to give it just a little bit of throttle. “But keep pulling back slowly on the clutch pedal. It’s not over yet.”
The car shuddered just a little and then moved ahead in the parking lot. We drove for a short distance in first gear.
“Now come to a stop,” Jonak said. “Push down the clutch pedal and then the brake pedal.” Tristan did so and the car stopped smoothly.
“That’s all there is to it,” Jonak said.
In fact, it takes more than a few goes to get it right, because the driver needs to recognize when the car is starting to move (when the clutch plates first find grip) and co-ordinate that with the additional throttle needed to compensate for the demand on the engine. For Tristan, still a teenager, it took less than a dozen tries before he was smooth.
It’s much easier to shift between gears while the car is moving because there’s already some momentum; as well, the new Corolla Hatch has a rev-matching button that will help synchronize the engine speed when the various gears are selected. Stopping is just a matter of remembering to push in the clutch pedal at the same time as the brake.
“You don’t want to stall the engine when you stop, because it doesn’t look good,” Jonak said. “If you’re a young guy with a girlfriend, it won’t really impress her too much, you know?
“But with today’s cars, the computer takes over and helps you. If you learn on a new car, it’s easy to move over to an old car and it becomes like second nature. It doesn’t take long. It’s like riding a bicycle. It just stays in you.”
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