Wheels: Generational Shift: Learning to Drive a Stick

Larry Edsall Tom Jones of Sun City West, Ariz., rides shotgun in his 1960 Ford Galaxie and helps Michelle Mousel learn how to manipulate the classic car’s “three-on-the-tree” gearshift.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Dorrie Sibley’s reason for bringing her son Breslin, 16, to learn how to drive a car equipped with a manual transmission, a so-called stick shift, had nothing to do with the reason the instructional event was being held. But it was a very good reason nonetheless.

“He might be out with a drunk friend one day,” Ms. Sibley said.

Larry Edsall The steering column shifter on Tom Jones’s 1960 Ford Galaxie.

Should that ever happen, Ms. Sibley wants her son to be ready to move into the role of designated driver.

Breslin Sibley and some 40 other young drivers were here last month to participate in the Hagerty Driving Experience, an event designed to introduce young drivers both to enjoyment of driving classic cars and to learning how to drive any car, new or old, with a manual rather than automatic transmission.

Hagerty, the classic car insurer, started this program nearly two years ago in conjunction with the Collector Car Appreciation Day, which has been established by a United States Senate resolution on a yearly basis since 2010.

Hagerty has similar events planned April 13 in Houston, June 7 in Denver, July 12 in Orange County, Calif., Aug. 2 in Toronto and Sept. 21 in Las Vegas.

For each event, Hagerty makes arrangements to use a closed piece of pavement — here, the driveways outside of the Scottsdale International Automobile Museum were used — and persuades several of its local customers to bring their classic cars and to teach young drivers how to start, drive and stop while coordinating not just gas and brake pedals but also a clutch. Ford helps sponsor the event and lends a few new cars. For this event, they were a pair of 2013 Mustang GTs and a Focus ST.

Each session begins with classroom instruction, including an explanation of how a manual transmission and its clutch operate, and then moves outside and under the hood of a new Ford for a quick lesson on vehicle maintenance, such as checking tire pressures and various fluid levels.

Then it’s into the cars, with the car owner or a Hagerty employee driving a lap or two while explaining the nuances of a particular car and its clutch before turning over the driver’s seat to the student.

Jim Bauder of Scottsdale, who brought his immaculate 1968 Triumph TR250, admitted to having a lot of hesitation about turning over his baby to young, inexperienced strangers. But, he said, “I taught my three children to drive a stick and had only one failure,” when his daughter burned out the clutch on her first try. But she tried again after the clutch was replaced, Mr. Bauder said, and mastered the skill to the point that she bought a Honda Civic with a manual transmission and drove it up and down the hilly streets of San Francisco.

“Somebody taught me to drive stick,” said Mark Esbenshade of Scottsdale, owner of a 1958 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider Veloce. Mr. Esbenshade felt he was simply passing the favor along to a new generation.

“It’s the payback,” said Warren Smith of Phoenix, whose 1969 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray was very popular with the young drivers. “Kids learn today to drive in front of the TV, through video games. That’s not right. When I was a kid, I dreamed of having a Corvette. It took a while, but it happened. If I can get one of them interested in classic cars, my job is done.”

Tom Jones of Sun City West brought his 1960 Ford Galaxie with its three-speed manual mounted not on the floor but on the steering column, the famed “three on the tree.”

“I belong to the Automobile Restoration Club of Sun City West,” he said, “and part of our mission statement is to mentor youth.”

Part of that mentoring, he said, is to teach driving and even vehicle restoration skills, “so the art is not lost.” He lamented how mechanics now plug in a computer and read codes instead of “listening to an engine and developing a solution.”

Several young drivers were surprised at how much they enjoyed driving Mr. Jones’s big green Ford. Seventeen-year-old Paul Heinrich of Phoenix had driven A.T.V.s with clutches, but never a car with a manual transmission. “It was amazing,” he said, “I like how you were more involved in the driving experience.”

Many of the young drivers don’t have a stick-shifted car at home, but came to learn so they’d be ready should such a skill ever be needed. An exception was Brittany Fielden, 15, of Tempe. Her family has a Toyota 4Runner with a manual. She said she’s driven it, but never on the street. That will likely change, thanks to her newfound skills.

On the other hand, she may have left the event with other driving goals in mind.

“The Corvette was exciting to drive,” she said, “and I’m looking forward to trying the Mustang.”