Young people want to learn to shift gears
08/19/2025
It wasn't so long ago that I had to painstakingly learn how to let the clutch in slowly, pause briefly at the grinding point and engage the clutch gently. I made my first attempts at driving my parents' Toyota Auris in an industrial area in the north of Winterthur. I carefully lifted my foot off the clutch and tentatively stepped on the gas. A little too timidly, apparently, because the engine (a 1ZR-FAE) responded with a rumble and stalled. And yes, the family car actually has the same naturally aspirated engine as the Lotus Elise, from which 132 hp can only be teased out at 6400 rpm.
I had to think back to these beginnings when I taught my girlfriend how to change gear at the weekend. She also recently got her driver's license, albeit on an automatic. In Switzerland, that doesn't matter any more: there is no longer a corresponding remark on the driver's license. So she got behind the wheel and I sat in the passenger seat. Starting off on a country lane was no problem, the 1.4 TSI of the VW Golf Variant is tame. From first gear it went cleanly into second gear, but on the country road - WRUUUM - with plenty of "intermediate throttle" into third. Since then I know what a clutch smells like.
There are fewer and fewer manual gearboxes on Swiss roads. While 12 percent of new cars still had a clutch pedal and a gear stick in 2021, two years later it was only 7.6 percent. Are manual gearboxes threatened with extinction? Not necessarily. In the USA, where manual gearboxes have long been a rarity, Generation Z (born between 1995 and 2010) has discovered shifting for itself. Just like vinyl records and white sneakers, manual gearboxes are experiencing a revival there (perhaps thanks to the racing scenes from Fast and Furious).
Imagine if the manufacturers jumped on this bandwagon - then suddenly there would be more small manuals like the GR Yaris. The problem is that fewer and fewer young people are able to change gear at all. That's why there are already courses in the USA where you can learn this rare skill. For us, shifting gears is not yet a lost skill, but as I drive through the Töss Valley with my girlfriend in the Golf, I secretly pray that the clutch will survive ...
