I have had lots of manual transmissions growing up my first 3 cars were stick, one of which we kept for 19 years but we gotta remember that the automatic transmissions of the 70's and 80 were really inferior to a stick....these days many automatic transmissions are much better than the sticks that are offered and when you combine a set of paddle shifters as well as "Intelligent" transmissions that learn your driving patterns it's hard to even think of a stick with some very rare exceptions......in any case the 3 cars we have are all automatic, although the Cooper S has a techtronic transmission with paddle shifters.