Stick Swaps & Why Driving Manual Makes You a Safer Driver

Welcome back to Switch Guest Season 6. I'm your host Doug Tabott here with my co-host

Tyler Sanders and behind the camera, well you can't see in the camera, but anyway, behind

the scenes behind the curtain is Ethan Huffnagle, our executive international producer extraordinaire.

If you enjoy this podcast, please keep listening, but also leave a comment wherever you can,

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and see kind of the behind the scenes and the way behind the curtain in between segments.

Of us preparing for segments that we're about to do. It definitely didn't just happen.

No, there's exclusive content.

Pay no attention to the men behind the curtain.

Right, right. And you can get there Patreon.com slash Switchcast. Special announcement, speaking

of watching live, we are going to do our annual Switchcast Live Christmas Party episode with the

All-Star Switchcast cast. People like Tim from Tim's Enthusiast Garage, Myron Vernes, our technical

advisor, Dan Doucet, and OG John Sabo, and more will be on hand to lend their expertise and humor,

and we're just going to have a great time interacting with you, sipping on some nog,

and just enjoying the night, talking all things cars and related to cars.

I like our Christmas tradition. This will be the second year we've done it,

so too means it's a tradition then, right?

Tyler's already getting ready. He's got his kid in his sweater on over here.

We love a man's sweater.

Yes, so we know it's warming, Tyler, but what is warming our bellies? What is fueling this podcast,

Tyler?

Well, Doug, it is snowstorm outside, and it is Christmas time, so I'm drinking my

a mid-winter night's dram from High West Distillery.

That was a weak cork pop, but this is a few years old. I'd buy one of these bottles every year,

and I drink it only during a snowstorm or the Christmas season, and it might be overpriced,

but I like the vibes.

I'm now trying the Elmer T. Lee that you tried last podcast. I do like me a little bit of Elmer T.

Lee, and this tastes kind of weird now. It's been sitting there for a while. It's been oxidized.

All right, so getting warmed up. There was a midnight blue 996 GT3 that just got

list on brain trailer, and Tyler, you were looking for a long time, and that was kind

of your unicorn color, one of them. This one has full leather and ceramic brakes,

but it's got some track time, but you bought a white one already. Do you feel like you jumped

the gun too early and didn't wait for your ultimate unicorn?

So, Doug, I got to be honest. This is one of, other than the green ones,

probably looking at the spec sheet, one of the best North American 996 GT3s from a spec

perspective. Color match center console, color match seat backs, some Illuma look that I think

is pretty tasteful in period, the aluminum gauges, the full leather, the whole, like the

cats pajamas. It's the embossed like Porsche crest in the headrest. Good time.

This car specifically was one of the ones that I was thinking of hunting down based on the spec,

and I got to say, after seeing it and thinking about it, I have no regrets.

It's a little rough. It's a little rough. The ceramic rotors look just a wee bit more toasted

than John Daly by the 18th hole, and it went off and hit a tire wall and had the front bumper

replaced, and there's, it's obvious based on the leather on some stuff, like it has just been used.

All the GT3 enthusiasts, quote unquote, in the comments on these are like, I love to see one

that's been used as intended. But then they don't bid on it. They don't bid on it, and it's rough,

and it's, I feel very good about the lovely white car that I have purchased, but I will be

fascinated to see if this goes for more than I paid for the white car. My guess is it will purely

because it's blue. I don't know. People see condition and it's got a lot of track use

associated where previous off track damage. Yeah. But I guess your GT3, we got a gift.

You got a gift. Oh, Stephen Long, a listener of the podcast. Thank you, Stephen. Don't even know

what it is yet. And it is color matched. Who white stitched Porsche key chains. Oh, well,

thank you. My goodness. Yes, there you go. Oh, look at me. Now, you have to use them,

even if you're better ones. Nah, I use it. I don't normally have key chains,

so these will be quite wonderful to put on. Do you have two keys? I do.

One of them doesn't have the computer chip in it, but it, hey, it starts the car and it unlocks

the doors. Of course. Well, thank you. Ah, yes. We were speaking about importing cars last

episode, and I'm importing one from Canada for a client, and I was amazed. It's been a while

since I've done it, but really nothing's changed other than the tariffs. So I still know my way

around it. Well, it's been a while since I've done it in Canada anyway, but it's amazing how

few customs brokers know their way around the rules. I'm not going to name names because some of them

are people I work with and they're great, but it was just I contacted three different customs

brokers. Well, this is four, actually, and five that all gave me conflicting and often flat out

wrong information. It wasn't all to do with tariffs. So one car from Europe, I was quoted 25%

tariff by one broker and 15% by the other one. Both of them specialize in overseas European

imports. And I'm like, okay, it's one thing for AI to get something wrong, but this is,

this is what you do. This is what you should know. But in researching this car coming in from Canada,

I was told three different things all wrong by three different brokers. One, it has to be held in

their yard for 30 days. So they do the import, but it has to go to Boston sit in their yard for 30

days. I was like, that seems bizarre. What? There's no bond on it. Like it doesn't, it's an old car.

So anyway, that was a, that was a big no. The next one told me that classic cars are exempt

from the 15% reciprocal tariffs, and I only have to pay two and a half percent. And they were

referencing this section 232 exemption because the car is aluminum and steel. So it falls under

the aluminum and steel tariff rules, whatever, which I've literally read an article that clarified

where people had tried to do that before and they got charged back by customs and customs

clarified. No, that doesn't work. So I told her, no, like, no, I think you need to charge me 15%.

And I referenced this article, she goes, well, did that come from an article or from the executive

order? I was like, well, it's an article from a somebody who does this and they're referencing

like cases of people getting charged back. They're like, Oh, I don't know about that. I mean, we've

only been, we've been doing it this way forever. And, you know, we've only been charging people

two and a half percent. So man, I'm going to have a lot of unhappy customers, if that's not right.

I was like, well, you're going to have a lot of unhappy customers because the feds are charging

people back when they don't pay what they're supposed to pay. Yeah. And then the third one,

for a car over 25 years old, they said, I need to provide a photo of the VIN sticker showing

that the car conforms to the federal motor vehicle safety standards. How does the VIN sticker tell

you that? Well, the, it says it right on it says this vehicle conforms to US EPA DOT,

blah, blah, blah and HTSA crap. So I was like, no, it's, and I told them it's a 1993.

And no, so I had to clarify and, but it's all these customs companies, I'm having to tell them

what to do. And I'm like, this is like when we closed on our house, I had to fix the closing

statement that was prepared by a title company. That is what they do. Is they prepared? I guess,

seriously, it was like $8,000 off. There's this random $2,500 credit on there for nothing that I

should have just left on there and been like, okay, but it was wrong. And they had all this

different stuff on there. And I'm like, that doesn't apply. That doesn't apply. This amount is

wrong. I was like, I can't trust professionals to be professionals. Okay, cool car coming out,

not worthy of a full segment, but it's interesting.

Via the drive, the Magma GT mid-engine supercar could be the future of Genesis. Now,

this thing has Hyundai roots, we're getting a little bit far removed. It's the luxury brand

of the luxury brand of Hyundai, but this thing's kind of cool. It does look pretty darn good.

And it's supposed to be just a mid-mounted V8. It's not a hybrid. It's just a car.

And it's probably going to be fairly reasonably priced. It looks good.

Holy, the Jalopnik has an article entitled, Genesis wants to go GT3 racing with this thing.

That would be sick. Right? Whoa. Right? So I feel like this is the modern day Audi R8.

It is a mid-level luxury brand, kind of up branding with an entry that hits above its

pay grade. What's the phrase? I don't know. Punches above its weight. I was trying to make a

baseball analogy with hits, but then I lost it. Sports ball. This looks, and I like that it's

not over, it doesn't feel over styled. It is smooth and curvaceous. And I kind of dig that you can

still tell it's a Hyundai with the way the headlights are done. Like that's kind of,

it doesn't, it looks, it fits in the brand's design language. Genesis. Genesis. You can tell

it's still a Genesis. Come on. Yes. Sorry. My mobby is hot. But it gets going so fast. It's like

an Exodus. Ha. Oh, but have you seen numbers yet? No.

What are, what are the numbers done? I don't know. We'll leave it up to the judges.

These are all Old Testament references, Tyler. I am too smitten by this car to pay attention

to you. I'm too atheist for that. Agnostic dog. Agnostic. Did you hear about the dyslexic

agnostic insomniac? No. He stayed up all night wondering if there was a dog.

That's good. Okay. I like, I like that one.

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Are stick swaps worth it? Yes, end of segment. Well, yes, okay, but everybody only talks about

money and ROI in the car world today, which is everything that's wrong with the car world,

separate tangent that we're not going to go down right now. But it's a worthy conversation because

we do get asked that often. I get asked that often anyway. And people go, oh, well, should I stick

swap it? Or, you know, should I buy a stick swapped car versus a factory manual? Whatever.

What's your response to that question? It depends. Okay. It depends. It depends on the car.

But backing up to your first question, yes, it's worth it. If you want a car in a stick that they

don't make in a stick, 100%, it's worth it. Cost doesn't matter. If you want a car like

E46M3, well, they do make that in a stick. But a bad example. Early 2000s, late 90s,

sequential manual crap is better in a manual. There will be people that say manuals aren't

always better. But I think from like 1995 to 2005, manuals were always better. There's just

full stop. Well, I'm going to flirt with the price thing here a little bit. If there is a

significant delta between an automatic and a factory manual, most of the time it would be cheaper to

buy and easier to find a good spec, a good condition automatic that you can then pay a company to put

a stick in. Correct. There's some risks there. Yes. But E46s are a good platform for that,

aren't they? It's relatively cheap. Yes, it's like five grand to do a swap. Yes,

I would not do it on a 911. They've made so many manual 911s, I don't think it's worth it.

Yeah, no, that's pointless. Good luck. You find a tiptronic car. Yeah,

like it just doesn't make any sense. So there are, but whatever, but yes.

One area where I think it's especially worth it, and I love, we'll get there, I love that people

are doing it to like CLK63 Black Series and really, really amazing cars that weren't available with

a manual. So you can't put a price on that. But also, if you find a car that's in the spec that

you have to have, if you're a spec conscious person, but that one isn't a stick, then you go,

okay, well, maybe I'll swap that. And of course, nobody wants to make a bad financial decision

when buying a car. So you go, you know, am I going to lose my shirt or is this going to be worth it?

And I pulled one example, very, very recent sale that I think highlights how worth it it is.

This is a 98 Ferrari F355 GTS six speed conversion. This car is an outlier because it is blue Tour de

France with Bordeaux leather and the incredibly rare factory carbon Kevlar racing seats. So

it is a spec to die for. It is unreal. This has got to be the only one.

Probably. And like this is a perfect scenario, obviously, you know, big dollars and everything.

But like the spec only came in this color, then just swap a stick in. This is amazing.

Right. So this car sold for $168,000 and the auction, there were some allegations in the

auction that may have seen previous damage, including underside frame repair. So there

was some questions, but it brought the moon anyway, which is more than I've seen recent

factory stick shift 355 sell for. There was a yellow one with seemingly no questions other

than needing a major service, which is like 10 grand, and that sold for like 133 last week.

So yeah. So if you're going to do it to a spec that's amazing, that's when you do it.

And I was able to, thanks to Epic VIN pull up the previous sale pre conversion because I want to

compare this car as it sold as an F one, then somebody converted it, and then it sold as a

stick. What's the ROI? So Epic VIN is a great site. It's not car facts, but it has historic

archived listings, including photos. And it's great if you're trying to research kind of the

story history of a car. And if you want those reports, you can use our affiliate link, which

is listed in the show notes in the video description. So this car was last for sale as an F one

in 2020. It was listed for 90 K. Now you might say that's not a relevant result before the

stair step have skyrocketed since then. Guess what cars haven't skyrocketed? Oh, is it 355?

F ones. The line is flat. The stick cars have skyrocketed. The blue chip desirable cars have,

but the F ones seem to be selling for the same money that they were back then.

That's crazy. It is crazy. So in this particular instance with this spec,

you got your money back and then some by taking a great spec car and converting it to stick. And

spec really rules the day in the market currently. People are paying bonkers money just for a different

color because it might be rare, which is a whole nother discussion. We're not being depressing,

Doug. We're talking about fun things. I know, swaps. Okay, stick swaps. Talk to us. I'll get

back to Ferraris. Talk to us a little bit about the Mercedes ones speaking of cars that didn't

have sticks that should have come with them. So that's what I really wanted to focus on is,

is it worth it to swap a Mercedes AMG car from the mid 2000s? And I came across a car that I had

kind of an ML 65. No, the AMG is the good stuff. So I came a junk. I came across a car that I'd

forgotten about from May of this year that was on bring a trailer, which was a 28,000 mile AM,

CL 63 AMG or CLK, CLK 63 AMG black series. This sold for $138,000 as an automatic. No, this was

after the stick swap. But that's kind of what they go for as an automatic. It kind of is. So I looked

at some other comps from around that time and it is based on mileage and like I'm not digging too

much into condition. It did go like 10 to 20 K over a comparable automatic. I remember that sale.

I do remember watching that one. It is so pretty. And in the comments, I don't know how accurate

this is because it wasn't a comment by the folks that did the swap. Somebody said it was about 15

K alleged it was about 15 K to do the work. So they got the money back. I think so. I'm surprised

it didn't go for more given how rare that is. But maybe the hype hasn't built yet for a stick

swap AMG like it has for some of the other cars. And I think that is, you know, we would hate the

next big thing frame of mind because we're not trying to make any money. But I think stick swapped

AMGs, they don't have to be black series, but from the early, you know, from the 2000s, from

2010, those are going to be something that as people make the kits and do the engineering work

and the like smart stuff to make them function as a stick as they would have been stock if they

were offered that way, that is what is going to be fantastic because you are getting an experience

that is unlike anything that was available and you're getting rid of a slush box. Because those

were never great transmissions, were they? They're always just kind of okay for an automatic. Maybe

the car was just so good. I didn't care. They're okay. Now you could have it with a stick for like

not crazy money. Yeah, I like that. And smoking tire did a video on like a normal SL AMG that was

stick swapped and they said it was absolutely incredible. It just suits the car and you,

you know, can breathe new life into something that was typically just kind of a cruiser.

So I'm all about that. It doesn't seem to be that bad. Some companies are starting to do it.

Yeah, I honestly, I could, I would consider one at one point, I think. I don't want to do the

swap, but like I would buy one that's already been swapped. Totally. I totally would. Maybe I just

need to find a really cheap, ratty CLK 63. CLK 63 black. How's it going to make fun of you? I'm

struggling over here. I've had to deepen the sauce. Back to the Ferraris. 360 challenge stradales.

That is a hot thing right now. Everybody is six speed converting those not swapping. I shouldn't

even say six speed conversion. It's a three pedal conversion because it is the exact same

the F1 transmission just shifts the sort of bird to bird. Right. You're removing paddles and

hydraulic pumps and arms and things like that and using your own. How can you drive a stick

without arms, Doug? Yes. Actuators, you're taking out actuators. Okay. November 19th,

very recent result in 11,000 mile challenge stradales, six speed conversion, three pedal

conversion sold for $493,000 on bring a trailer. Now that is not, it might actually be lower than

a non-stick one, but it's very difficult to determine where these are lying right now because

the 360 challenge stradale market seems to be going through puberty right now. Six months ago,

they were 300 grand and now they're like 450 to 800. Everybody's just throwing numbers out there,

like throwing darts at a wall and who knows where they end up. It's very difficult to say

whether or not the CS six speed manuals are worth it from an ROI perspective. However,

I kind of missed the boat. I was actually going to, I did try to buy a couple different

ratty or previously damaged or rebuilt title challenge stradales to do a six speed conversion on,

sorry, three pedal conversion last year around like 200K and like they all got sold out from

under me or something, whatever it was. And so I feel like I missed the boat, but I wanted to do it

because they're just amazing cars. Like that's one of the greatest driver cars ever made minus

the sequential manual F1 flappy pedal crap. So I think that's one of the best cars on the planet

to do that too. So money be darned. I just I think you should do that. I think that's the way to go.

An example, wow, of how far the stradale market has come in a short period of time. One year ago,

this exact same car already converted bid to $282,000. So it went from 282 to 493 in 11 months.

Yeah, growth spurt. The fourth why 30s. People are pumping them. There's a few people who are

pushing the market up speaking of people pushing the market up. Blue Chip Denver has sold a couple

stick swaps. This is one I tried to buy. There's a Canada defusially probably butchered that 360

stick swap that I tried to buy a couple years ago. Okay. They offered me their silver one,

but they said it would have to be like 400k, which at the time was an insane number and I

didn't pay it. Well, they just recently listed the silver one on their site for 725. And then

it is listed as sold. Now, we don't know what it sold for, but that certainly creates a perception

of huge value in the market. The Canada defusially one is now listed at I pulled the listing down.

I think it's $845,000, which is insane. It's a great color, but talk about trying to drive the

market up. That is almost a million dollars for Ferrari 360. It's just like it can't compute.

And no bearing in reality of the one that just sold for 493. But there's got to be something

because people are using, I'm guilty of this, sites like classic.com that will show the like

last asking price. You have no idea what it sold for. And if you're trying to look at the market,

like, wow, they were asking that much. That doesn't mean it sold for that.

Exactly. They might have just brokered it privately and then put it up for 725. Not

accusing anyone of shenanigans. I'm just saying like, this is the car business. Perception of

reality sometimes becomes reality. All right, let's look at 430s. That seems to be a pretty good one

to do. And again, thanks to Epic Venn, we have some pre pre conversion sales and post conversion

sales and mixed results here. So we've got an 07 430 with 10,000 miles sold on P car market for $130,000

in 2023, as an F one, as a three pedal manual, it sold in May of this year for 178,000 pretty good

return there sort of, but a conversion also costs in the neighborhood of $20 to $30,000.

So got your money back in a little bit more for the hassle. Another one we found here was a red one.

The last listed price was 135,000 with 27,000 miles that was in 2022. And then it sold on bring

a trailer with 36,000 miles, so more miles as a three pedal manual for $141,000. So in that

scenario, it did not ROI. Well, and isn't is 36,000 miles high for a 430? It is, but so is 26,000 miles.

Okay. So yeah, there's there's a couple other factors there. But still, it was not a significant

enough difference to warrant the conversion. I think the best overall car to do it to and the

biggest ROI is the Aston Martin. Oh, yes. Aston Martin works offers a, you know, quote unquote

factory manual conversion and that transmission on that car that automatic was absolute garbage

both from a driving experience, unless you ask somebody that owns one, they'll say it's the

greatest thing ever. But also from a maintenance perspective, if anyone ever offers me one, I go,

can I see the receipts for service because I want to know if the transmission has been

replaced, fixed, whatever. And often there has been work done. These sell as an automatic all day

long for like 5040 to 50 to 60 grand 60 being like a final year s package as a manual and the

conversion costs anywhere from $25 to $40,000. As a manual, they regularly sell in these six

figures. Yes, an O5 in May of this year, an S sold for $108,500. Another one sold on collecting cars,

it was a US car sold for $90,000 plus import and all that stuff. And I was actually trying to

buy that car. The original sale didn't happen. They relisted it. I was bidding on it. And then it

just disappeared from the site. So there were some shenanigans with that car. But

the original sale happened at 90K, which after you factor in tariffs and importing it over here,

is well into the six figures. Another one sold on SBX cars earlier this year. And of course,

I've lost this reference. Where did it go? $136,000. So it was a very low mileage one,

4,000 miles, but still some very, very solid results for the converted vanquish

manuals. I think that's the best car to do it to. It's an absolutely gorgeous car. Huge,

huge improvement to the car in terms of just mechanical reliability, driving experience,

but also resale value. So there's my vote for the best car to manual swap, well other than the

$360 and CLK63 Black Series. I would put the vanquish and the Black Series in kind of the

same bucket of incredible vehicles that you just could never have with the proper transmission.

So that's the thing to do it on. And I do think that once the AMG stick swaps become a little bit

more common, it probably won't be as high as the vanquish, but I think they'll definitely be worth

it financially and of course for the experience. Yep. I think it's got some of these have to

catch on a little bit, but I like the Aston Martin at least with the DB9. They initially

offered it only in automatic and then they said, we'll make it with a stick and the stick one was

significantly better in any way. More horsepower to the rear wheels, faster zero to 60, lighter,

just better all around. What if this is a new sub-segment? I don't even have a name for it. I

just, I don't know, wrote some jokes. It may or may not be that funny, but we talked about tallow

and Tesla's a while back, which was an initiative by Steak and Shake to promote their new, we were

healthy. We make our stuff, fry our stuff in tallow, beef tallow instead of vegetable oil,

which is actually makes a big difference. But anyway, they wanted Tesla owners to come out and

share their appreciation or whatever, they get free fries or something like that.

And you got the alliteration, it's catchy, marketing. So that got me thinking in an effort,

you know, there's an ongoing effort to come up with new, creative, alliterative names for cars

and coffee. Lambo's and latte, you know, conics, eggs and eggs. What if we came up with some names,

but did wrong answers only? Oh, okay. All right. Well, what do you got?

Corvettes and croissants. I mean, you won't catch a Corvette owner drinking French press coffee

or eating something he can't pronounce when he could just have toast and bacon and eggs.

But don't you dare tell a Corvette owner that Corvette and croissant are both French words.

Them are fighting words. Lambo's and Lesbo's. Oh, you don't see many Vermont natives have a

sticker on their Subaru saying my other car is a Countache, right?

Tea tree and trucks.

You know, there, Bob, if your truck's going to burn oils, might as well be essential oils.

What? Instead of rolling coal, how about we diffuse lavender from our exhausts?

Ethan, how do we pull the plug?

Yoda's and Yoda's for people who love economy cars and Star Wars action figures.

I think I might, Ethan said, I don't know about this segment for those of you listening when he

does have a bike. No, yes, maybe.

Ethan, we need a team meeting.

Let's see what YouTube thinks about that one.

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Well, speaking of manual transmissions, apparently they might save lives, that's according to an

article on yahoo.com, and we'll get there in a second. Before that, we want to highlight

somebody who is teaching teens to drive stick shifts, not just teens, but teens and adults.

He did not know how to drive stick when he first got his Miata, and in learning stick,

he created what is now becoming a nationwide franchise sensation. According to the drive,

Ahmed Reza turned his Miata into a side hustle by teaching enthusiasts to drive stick.

So he created the Manual Driving Academy, which is an in-person program that is teaching a new

generation of drivers how to row their own all over the country. So he started doing it just

in his locale in Houston, but then he expanded to other cities in Texas and then nationwide.

As of 2025, that's this year, but as of when this article was published, the academy offers

lessons in 47 different metro areas, and it is basically just a virtual company where he contracts

with local instructors to offer lessons. The problem is, if you want to do this as an instructor,

you have to use your own car. Ooh, I'm out. Nope. He does provide you with commercial

insurance coverage though, so you don't have to worry about that. You could buy like a Corolla

or like a Civic or something. Yeah, those are becoming increasingly hard to find. It is very

difficult to find a cheap stick shift car. Yes. But anyway, he is increasing the number of

stick shift enthusiasts and their proficiency across the country with his cool little company.

There's three different packages you can get, basic standard and the works. If you get the works,

apparently in two to four hours, you can learn advanced clutch control, hill starts, parallel

parking, and rev-matched downshifts, which, man, I want to meet that instructor that can teach

somebody who can't drive stick to do rev-matched downshifts in less than four hours. I know,

that was something that took me a while to get used to. I had to drive my car for probably a

couple of months before I felt like I was even okay at it. Well, he said your students should

walk away with a grasp of, so, you know. No, grass hit the gas pedal when he said make rev go up.

Right. Anyway, so if you have a cheap manual car and you want to make some extra side hustle

money, apparently he says you can earn 50 to 60 bucks per hour. I just think it's cool because

it is one more way that the stick shift culture is staying alive. And maybe, maybe it'll catch on and

manufacturers will respond and make some more true manual cars. And that is good because,

back to the Yahoo article, a number of parents are now thinking that their teens learning to

drive stick shift is the way to keep them from crashing. Distracted driving, we know,

is a real problem for teens, but let's be honest, it's a real problem for everybody.

Old drivers think they're better just because they're old, but they're not necessarily. And I've seen

just as many adults maybe more on their phones distracted crossing over the center line than

they have teens, but. It's always middle aged people. Yeah. I gotta be honest. They're like

holding up their phone like this. It's so bad. Yeah. But in this article, the parents who are

teaching their kids to drive stick, they believe that it is a way to give them

too many things to concentrate or enough things to concentrate on that they don't have time or

the ability to be distracted by their phones. Also in driving stick shift, anecdotally,

it makes you a better driver. If you talk to like old school drivers ed people, they would say that

if somebody came in with a stick shift, like they always passed, they just knew that they knew how

to drive and they proved it that they did know how to drive because when you learn stick, you have

to like learn more concepts and it's just like a more engaging experience with what you're doing.

When you have to pay more attention to what the car is doing, what you are doing, the traffic

around you, because you need to be able to preempt. Do I need to downshift? Do I need to

upshift? What kind of maneuver? Like you can't just like step on the brake pedal, you know?

And there's stuff from folks I've been around that don't know how to drive stick. They honestly

ask me, how do you pay attention to so many things? How do you know what gear to go into?

How do you know this? And it's like, I had just kind of learned. And every car is different too.

The different shift points and like different, it likes each car likes to be in a different

rev range when you're just cruising. And it's like all of that stuff you need to learn and internalize.

Yep. It's a lot. I don't have time to sit there on my phone when I'm driving ever.

Absolutely. Yeah. And one of the parents is quoted as saying there's something about that

engagement that makes you a better, more attentive driver. The room for distraction stinks.

Shrinks. Shrinks. Whoa. Dugs a little heavily toasted over here. I know. I was reading another

word and I conflated them. Each year, more than 200 people are killed according to this

article and crashes involving distracted teen drivers. I think that stat is fake.

We've talked about this before. People don't admit to being distracted because they don't

want the ticker. They don't want the responsibility. So I would say that number is probably 10x

because you can't know unless you open an investigation and, you know, subpoena their

phone records and stuff if they were actually on their phone. And it's proven that people

absolutely lie about it. So I think the number is harmfully low because it's not painting the

real picture of what the real danger is. Here's a scary stat. In a 2025 survey,

seven in 10 teens admitted to using or looking at their phones while driving for about 20% of

their trip. What? What could you possibly need to look at for that much time? Six, seven.

Oh, I don't know. Oh my God. Just whatever that ticker is. It's a six, seven thing. I don't know.

Here's the disappointing thing. There is limited evidence to show that driving a stick shift can

help reduce distracted driving among teens. Although one study found a reduction in distracted

driving among adolescent males with ADHD. I don't know what that has to do with stick shifts, but

anyway, they quoted it. But the parent said, we don't need a study to prove that driving a stick

have been good for their kids. Quote, I've noticed that Logan is actually hyper focused when driving

the stick shift. One parent said his attention is fully on the driving. He simply doesn't have the

mental bandwidth to be thinking about his phone or other distractions. Is that kind of a dig?

Bro can handle. No, he's saying when he's when he's driving an automatic car, the kid says,

there are so many functions the car does for you that it's easy for his mind to wander more. And

that is so telling. There are so many functions the car does for you. We are going down that

dangerous path of the car does more and more and more for you because regulators and manufacturers

and parents are, in my opinion, wrongly saying, well, drivers suck. So we need to have the car

fix that. We need to have the car do more things for you. Which means the car is a wonderful book

for Matthew Cronin. There it is. We need like a ding every time why we drive. He says the exact

opposite. He says that the more you do, the more skilled you are at it, the happier you are,

the better you function. And we don't need the car to do more things. We need people to do

more things because that is the root of the problem. Well, and a lot of the things that we

dislike about modern cars, their size, their complexity, the their weight, a lot of it is

in support of some of it is for batteries for hybridization or fully electric vehicles and

all that stuff. But otherwise, there's a lot that is related to additional safety or additional

convenience features that I find entirely unnecessary. I never want lane keep assist

in a car. I'm paying attention when I'm driving. I don't need the car to buzz me if I get slightly

too close on a corner to the like inside the to the shoulder marker. I don't need it.

We do all of this stuff and it means people don't have to participate and you're driving a

three thousand pound vehicle. They can hurt someone. Yeah. The problem is the stick shifts now

aren't real stick shifts because they have hill start assist and stall assist and red matching

and stuff. That's fine. Now, you know, the geezers would say, well, manual transmission is used to

not have synchros. You all are just soft, you know, but so double clutch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So we can all, you know, the only hill start I need is my handbrake. Yes, I've said that.

I've said that. All right, brings us to the props and flops of the week.

And as always, the props and flops are brought to you by Switchcars. Switchcars is the enthusiast

dealership where you buy and sell cars that we like ourselves. Check out our handpicked inventory

at switchcars.com and be sure to mention switchcast for special pricing when available. Find more

information online at switchcars.com or come visit our showroom in Twinsburg, Ohio. Doug,

what is the prize later? No, we're not giving it away. But what is the pick of the week from

2007 Porsche Cayman S six speed manual. Very few nannies or anything that that car does for you.

No lane keep assist. No hill start assist. None of the assists. Thirteen thousand miles Arctic

Silver and factory sport seats. Very nice spec. Low mileage. Just a really, really fresh car. The car

looks like it has the low miles that it does. It has crazy low miles. Uh huh. Our flop of the week

is a doozy. This article was originally on WXYZ.com. The title of the article is family's only car

full of Christmas presents for children stolen and in Detroit. Now this happened when they were

out at a Jonas Brothers concert and their car, they had gone Christmas shopping before the

concert. It was all loaded up with Christmas presents and their purse and their wallet were

in their things. My wife tells me not to leave in my car. I also wouldn't go Christmas shopping

before going to a concert in a city parking a car. But either way, this sounds sad. That's

terrible. Right, right. The awkward part of this all and there was an interview with this couple

and it was pretty sad like the guy is crying. He's going through cancer treatments like they're

just going through a lot of difficult things. The article is no longer on the website and I'm not

sure which is the flop in all of these flops. But yeah, the article is no longer there. We had to

try to find the video because it came out that the car wasn't stolen. It was repossessed.

Dave Ramsey has entered the chat with his controversial opinions. What are you doing

going to a concert when you don't have money to pay your car note?

Yeah. Yikes. Yeah, he'd say you shouldn't be buying Christmas presents for your kids if you

don't pay. I mean, honestly, you shouldn't. You should be paying for necessities. The best Christmas

gift you can give your kid is security, a roof over their head, not presents. We don't need more

stuff. But anyway, oh boy, yeah, lots of, lots of step in it in that news story.

There's probably, don't worry, there's probably a GoFundMe out there for this couple to get their

car back from the thieves. Those evil companies who took back the car that, whoops, egg on faces there.

Let's see our prop of the week, according, according, according to scotastoryboard.com,

European Rally Champion, I'm not going to try to pronounce his name, Miko. He's a Polish driver

and he likes hypermiling. And our friend Jay Roberts likes doing that in his Prius,

but this guy did it with a diesel Skoda. And yeah. The model of this car is the Superb.

The Skoda Superb. It has a scant 66 liter fuel tank and supposedly good aerodynamics. He did

not heavily modify this car. It has a two liter TDI, a seven speed DSG automatic transmission.

He just used low rolling resistance tires and he noted that they were not brand new. He wore them

in a little bit because that gives you better gas mileage and he broke a record and, Collie,

where the heck is this record? You'd think I could do this better, but no. Man, this car is like

attractive. Yes. Why don't we get these? For the longest amount of mileage driven on a single fuel

tank. And that in this long, long article, you'd think it was, oh, right here, 2831 kilometers

on one tank of gas. How is that even possible? Hypermiling. That's nuts. Yeah. 2.61 liters

of diesel per 100 kilometers. Wow, they make a super station wagon. Oh, that's hot. This is great,

though. His secret is smooth driving and foresight. Quote, look ahead, anticipate, ease off the

accelerator in time and try to break as little as possible. Accelerate gently and gradually.

Honestly, that is stuff that driving a stick shift in normal traffic kind of teaches you to do

because you have to work less. Right. I always preempt, like, when do I need to slow down?

What do I need to do? And I just try to do everything smoothly. So anyway, I'm a big fan of diesel.

I think it's a little bit crazy that America just poo-poo's it and is full all in in EVs.

But man, think of what we could do. Like, what if that car was a diesel hybrid?

You could go across the, well, well over 100 miles a gallon easily. That's insane.

Yep. Yep. Anyway, I thought that was cool. I'm not a hypermiler myself, but I think these types

of driving feats are cool nonetheless. And I love it when people prove that internal combustion

engines can be in our very, very efficient. The Sheffield brand was recently revived by Jake

Turkbus, an owner of an original Sheffield All Sport Diver he received from his parents in 1970

when he was just 11 beginning his love of watches. As an adult, Jay used his extensive

expertise in product development and marketing to revive the brand that started it all. He set

out to develop watches with a high level of quality and specification at a value price.

His first effort and a successful one on July of 2023 was the debut of the Sheffield All Sport

Diver one. It had the kind of build and movement that much more expensive watches use and his

debut price of $108 was equivalent to the $13 his parents paid in 1970. Since that debut,

Sheffield has expanded to a wider range of automatics and chronos, many designed around

vintage Sheffield dials of the 60s. The Sheffield well of clever and unique design remains his

inspiration as well as maintaining the goal of high quality, very affordable range of automatic

and quartz watches. Sheffield watches value on merit, not just price. I love mine,

so get yours at SheffieldWatches.com and be sure to mention you found them on Switchcast.

Thank you for joining us for Switchcast with Doug Tabott and Tyler Sanders produced by Ethan

Huffnagle. Switchcast is an automotive entertainment and opinion show and nothing we say should be

taken very seriously. We do not give tax, investment, legal, emotional or professional advice and the

only licenses we hold are driver's licenses. The opinions expressed on this show are exclusively

held by the people pontificating at that moment and do not reflect the values of our producers

or sponsors. Our theme music is provided by Emily and Ivory. You can stream their full

album on Spotify or SoundCloud. If you like this show, you can stream it in its entirety on your

favorite audio podcast platform. Check out switchcast.live for more info.

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