Pluggers by Rick McKee for March 06, 2022

I had a Rambler that would do this so I would always find an incline to park on just pop the clutch and away we go .

…Provided, of course, that he trusts his brakes…!

My first car was a 1960 rambler classic! Your rambler was …?

Remember doing that with tractors ;-)

I used to have a car with no reverse gear. I had to be very careful to park where I could drift backwards or pull straight forward.

Gee Grampa, what’s a Rambler?

Had cars like that. Pop the clutch!

A Plugger was able to drive a "straight-stick vehicle. Today’s kids not so much. Read an article where a guy was car jacked but the punk had to abandon the Jeep Rubicon because it was a manual transmission and he couldn’t drive it.

That was the main method of starting my ’56 Ford in the late ’60s.

Had to do that with the truck I learned to drive with.. 1937 chev. Cold no problem, but once warmed up.. twas a rolling start or wait.

I have one of the last F150s with a manual 5 speed stick. Everybody else needs a portable lithium jump starter.

I bump-started my old car for a week until payday. I was very careful to park with a red zone in front of me. So mad when I came out and there was some scofflaw parked in the red.

In Stephen King’s The Stand, Stu tells Tom Cullen to look for a car with three pedals that they can roll start. Try finding a standard transmission nowadays…

Smart man if you have a battery issue. However, it’s only a temporary solution and Pluggers know that too….

I went two weeks having to park on an incline because the starter went out on my ’90 Ranger. Needed the next payday to get it fixed. Good times…

1965 International Travelall, manual choke, feather the gas peddle and pray !

Haha! Those were the days! I’ve done that a time or two myself!

For all the Rambler alumni above: ♪♫ “Lord, I was born a Ramblin’ man.” ♫♪

One of the hardest things I learned to do on a manual was to start and stop on a hill and then go without rolling backwards. Finding that sweet spot with clutch and gas was HARD! Took me a long time to get it just right. My mom would not let me go test for my license until I could do it pretty consistently. Same with parallel parking. Then when I went for my test, I didn’t have to do any of that.