{"id":37382,"date":"2019-04-17T06:00:11","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T21:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panamera-life.com\/?p=37382"},"modified":"2019-06-07T10:20:41","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T01:20:41","slug":"i-want-to-get-own-mt-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panamera-life.com\/en\/entry\/i-want-to-get-own-mt-car\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Become a Cool Woman Who Drives a Porsche Manual with Confidence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Royu Driveway Changed How I Feel<\/h3>\n

Ever since I joined the Sunday morning gathering at Royu Driveway<\/strong><\/a> the other day, something has shifted in me. I\u2019m the woman who had absolutely no interest in cars until a few years ago<\/strong>\u2026 and who chose an automatic-only license without a second thought when I went to driving school 19 years ago<\/strong>. I never imagined I\u2019d feel this way\u2014and I\u2019m the most surprised of all.<\/p>\n

It really goes to show: you never know what life has in store<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

So, without keeping you in suspense, here\u2019s what I mean:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve decided to buy a manual car of my own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026Wait,<\/span><\/p>\n

Whaaat?! (\uff9f\u0434\uff9f)!!!!????<\/span><\/p>\n

I can imagine people saying, \u201cMina, have you hit your head or something?\u201d But I\u2019m completely serious. That\u2019s exactly what I\u2019m thinking right now.<\/p>\n

What Being Able to Drive a Manual Opens Up<\/h3>\n

As I briefly mentioned in my post about Royu the other day<\/a>, one of the owners kindly offered, \u201cWould you like to drive my 718 Boxster GTS with a manual transmission?<\/strong>\u201d But after my husband took it for a drive, he put a stop to the idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cMina, you can\u2019t handle it. You\u2019ll wreck the clutch. Don\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At the time, I accepted that he was right: it was someone else\u2019s precious Porsche, and I wasn\u2019t confident driving a manual<\/strong>. But five minutes passed, then ten, and I started to feel more and more frustrated.<\/strong> Meanwhile, I watched people who\u2019d arrived in manual Porsches drive off with effortless confidence. Instead of fading, my frustration just kept growing.<\/p>\n

If I\u2019d been able to drive a manual without a problem, I could have taken the 718 Boxster GTS for a spin that day.<\/strong> A 718 Boxster GTS is a rare car\u2014you\u2019re not likely to get the chance to test-drive one just by asking at a dealership.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Years ago, an English conversation school had a slogan along the lines of, \u201cSpeak English and you can talk to a billion people.\u201d Learning to drive a manual feels much the same.<\/p>\n

If you can drive a manual, you can drive cars all over the world (well, maybe not huge vehicles like trucks)<\/span>.<\/p>\n

It would open up a whole new world. And yet, how many opportunities am I missing out on?<\/strong> Or maybe this is just my competitive streak kicking in, haha.<\/p>\n

A Woman Who Can Confidently Drive a Manual Porsche<\/h3>\n

Lately, I\u2019ve found myself thinking:<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be a cool woman who can confidently drive a manual Porsche.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There aren\u2019t many women who can drive a manual. So imagine gliding up Royu Driveway in a manual Porsche, or cruising through town behind the wheel of one (even if nobody around you can tell it\u2019s a manual)<\/span>. That would be incredibly cool.<\/p>\n

I think I feel this way because I\u2019m a bit of a contrarian\u2014I\u2019ve always liked doing things differently from everyone else.<\/p>\n

On an elementary school trip to Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima Island in Hiroshima Prefecture, everyone was buying the island\u2019s famous souvenir: a rice paddle<\/strong>. Since it seemed like absolutely everyone was buying one, I deliberately chose a pasta server instead. (Like this one\u2193)<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

*Image source: Amazon, \u201cPRO SERIES Wooden Spaghetti Server, Standard<\/a>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When I got home and gave it to my mother, she said:<\/p>\n

\u201cCome on, the souvenir to get on Miyajima is a rice paddle<\/strong>! And we hardly ever eat spaghetti at home!<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

I still remember how emphatically she called me out. I have to admit, I\u2019m a bit of an oddball (-_-).<\/p>\n

Anyway, the point is that I like doing things differently. Since so few women drive manuals, that\u2019s exactly why I want to become one who can<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

My Own Manual Porsche<\/h3>\n

I can hear people saying, \u201cIf you want to learn to drive a manual so badly, stop making excuses and get more practice!<\/strong>\u201d But our Boxster GTS is a two-seater.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That means if I want my husband beside me while I practice (I\u2019m still nervous about going alone)<\/span>, we\u2019d need to make arrangements for someone to watch the kids\u2014like asking my mother-in-law to look after them when we went to Royu Driveway the other day.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, it would be difficult to practice regularly unless we had a manual car with at least four seats, so the kids could come along too.<\/p>\n

On top of that, our Boxster is my husband\u2019s cherished first Porsche\u2014the car that fulfilled a dream he\u2019d had since childhood. If I were to scratch it, bump it, or somehow teach the clutch a bad habit\u2026 I just can\u2019t bring myself to practice in it casually.<\/p>\n

And so time went by without me getting any practice in (yes, I know\u2014that\u2019s just an excuse, haha)<\/span>.<\/p>\n

My husband says,<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the GT3 Touring with a manual (MT)<\/span> arrives, stick a learner-driver sign on it and practice, haha. Nobody will come anywhere near you!\u201d<\/p>\n

But even I think that might be pushing it, haha. And it\u2019s a two-seater\u2014and a GT3, no less\u2026 I\u2019d be even more nervous about driving it than the Boxster and would probably avoid it altogether.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As I mulled it all over and relived the frustration I\u2019d felt at Royu Driveway, an idea came to mind:<\/p>\n

Why not just buy a manual Porsche of my own<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

Easy to say, \u201cI\u2019ll just buy one!\u201d\u2014but the truth is, I don\u2019t have that kind of money, haha. Still, if it were my own Porsche, I wouldn\u2019t have to worry about it being someone else\u2019s car<\/strong>, and I could drive it as often as I liked.<\/p>\n

So I started browsing used-car listings, but manual Porsches really are expensive<\/strong> (of course they are, haha)<\/span>. Even the ones that looked like bargains tended to have very high mileage or be older models. As my husband pointed out, \u201cYou might get one cheap, but you\u2019ll spend a fortune on maintenance.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe buying a manual Porsche right away is just too much for me at this point (-_-).<\/p>\n

If all I wanted was to drive a manual, I could buy an inexpensive Japanese car. But in the past, I\u2019ve found that I could drive the Toyota Comfort at driving school just fine, but couldn\u2019t manage the Boxster at all<\/strong>. And when my brother let me drive his manual Subaru Legacy, he said, \u201cYou\u2019re getting the hang of it!\u201d\u2014but when I got home and drove the Boxster, I was hopeless again.<\/p>\n

So ideally, I\u2019d like a manual car that feels as much like a Porsche as possible.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to the Volkswagen Golf<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

With that in mind, I started looking online at the Golf and other promising manual cars. When I asked my husband for advice, he said:<\/p>\n

\u201cA manual Golf GTI<\/strong> could be a good choice, if you can find a nice one that hasn\u2019t been modified. Or a rear-wheel-drive BMW 3 Series with a manual<\/strong> would be good for learning the fundamentals. Actually, I\u2019d quite like one myself, haha.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe one of those would be the way to go. To be honest, though, I am a woman, after all, and part of me would rather spend the money on getting rid of facial sunspots and brightening my skin than buying a car.<\/p>\n

But if I keep thinking like that, I\u2019ll never become \u201ca cool woman who can confidently drive a manual Porsche\u201d<\/strong>!\u30fd(`\u0414\u00b4)\uff89<\/p>\n

So, while I\u2019ll keep my goal of buying a Targa of my own someday<\/strong> (though the current Targa isn\u2019t available with a manual transmission in Japan\u2026)<\/span>, I\u2019m starting to seriously consider whether I could find a promising used manual car with at least four seats<\/strong> (so the kids can ride along too)<\/span> before the end of this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Royu Driveway Changed How I Feel Ever since I joined the Sunday morning gathering at Royu Driveway the other day, something has shifted in me. I\u2019m the woman who had absolutely no interest in cars until a few years ago\u2026 and who chose an automatic-only license without a second thought when I went to driving school 19 years ago. I never imagined I\u2019d feel this way\u2014and I\u2019m the most surprised of all. It really goes...","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_locale":"en_US","_original_post":"https:\/\/www.panamera-life.com\/?p=10345","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nocar-nolife","en-US"],"yoast_head":"How to Become a Cool Woman Who Drives a Porsche Manual with Confidence - \u30dd\u30eb\u30b7\u30a7\u304c\u308f\u304c\u5bb6\u306b\u3084\u3063\u3066\u304d\u305f - \u30aa\u30fc\u30ca\u30fc\u30ba\u30d6\u30ed\u30b0<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how one aspiring Porsche owner plans to master a manual\u2014and why buying a four-seat car could be the first step toward confident Porsche ownership.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.panamera-life.com\/en\/entry\/i-want-to-get-own-mt-car\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Become a Cool Woman Who Drives a Porsche Manual with Confidence - 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