Have you ever been at a car meet, checking out a cool car, then glanced next to the driver’s seat and seen an automatic shifter? You roll your eyes. This guy isn’t a real driver. For street cred, you had better drive a manual transmission car.
As if anyone needed more motivation than that, scientists in Japan have produced a study suggesting that working a stick shift gives the brain a daily workout that automatic transmissions simply do not. In a research project led by neuroscientist Professor Ryuta Kawashima of Tohoku University, the constant coordination required to drive a manual transmission was shown to activate the brain’s prefrontal cortex, the region responsible for memory, attention, and decision-making.
Gearheads already know that driving a manual transmission car makes even the daily commute more engaging. Driving stick requires the driver to constantly monitor speed, depress the clutch, upshift and downshift, and modulate the throttle. Those continuous decisions give the brain a workout, and Japanese neuroscientists believe that might help maintain brain health in older gearheads.
Last year in Canada, less than five percent of new cars sold were equipped with a manual gearbox. Most “boring” cars, like the Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic, are now automatic-only. The only bright spot seems to be Subaru, which recently announced that three new stick-shift-equipped models are set to be released in the next year.
In the U.S., 90 percent of Subaru BRZ buyers chose the manual transmission, while 85 percent of WRX buyers did the same. Those are telling figures. It shows that even today, driving enthusiasts still prefer to shift their own gears. It has always been about driving involvement.
Now, science may be telling us that driving stick keeps your brain firing on all cylinders. As if anyone needed another reason to save the manuals.